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U.S. Department of Homeland Security, USA

Screen shot of the EPT, modeling the University of Southern Mississippi.

There are over 20,000 stadiums, open sporting complexes and arenas in the United States. These venues can accommodate up to 100,000 people at a time for events that vary from football games to rock concerts to graduation ceremonies. Security personnel at these venues have to be prepared to keep the venue and all of its guests and workers safe in the event of manmade or naturally occurring threats. A disaster of any kind in a major event venue has the potential to, not only hurt large numbers of people, but also, disrupt economies and communities. In preparing for events and planning for potential threats, security personnel and stadium staff must also take measures to adequately train and educate full-time or part-time vendor staff and local first responders to react if such a threat should occur.

The Infrastructure and Geophysical Division (IGD) and the Command, Control and Interoperability (CCI) Division and the Infrastructure and Geophysical (IGD) Division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate are collaborating in the area of stadium evacuation planning. IGD’s Sports Evacuation Planning program, which is managed by the Southeast Region Research Initiative (SERRI), and the Center of Excellence for Command, Control and Interoperability (CCI COE) joined to validate the evacuation planning tool (EPT), developed by Regal Decision Systems, and to better enhance its modeling and analytical capabilities to better support information sharing, collaboration, and decision support in a stadium evacuation scenario.

The CCI COE consists of two teams: the Visualization Sciences, led by Purdue University, and the Data Sciences, led by Rutgers University. The Sports Evacuation Planning Program involves Regal Decision Systems, Inc., the University of Southern Mississippi and the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4). This partnership will provide a more powerful tool set for use by stadium security and management personnel, as well as the local first responders on scene during stadium events. Ultimately, this collaboration will allow for real-time information on the progress of a threat and the movements of people inside and outside the stadium and enable up-to-date communication of such information amongst security, local first responders and other appropriate personnel. It will also provide the ability to study and incorporate behavioral dynamics into the tool’s planning and behavioral models, as well as the evacuation efforts of a stadium.

The EPT was originally developed by Regal Decisions Systems, Inc. through another program in S&T for use by the U.S. Secret Service for planning in support of National Conventions. Since that time, the tool has transitioned to sports stadium evacuation planning and has gained considerable interest from the sporting industry and other Federal agencies. IGD and CCI plan to further support this effort as they prepare to pilot the EPT at five NFL stadiums. The NCS4 Center is bringing together all the major professional sports leagues, the NCAA and government security agencies for a first-ever sports security conference in August 2010 in New Orleans.