THE INTELLIGENT CITY AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
IN THE 21st CENTURY
copyright 1994
by Christian E. Stalberg
(Originally published in Proceedings: The International Emergency
Management and Engineering Conference, April 18-21, 1994)
Abstract -
The emergence of the intelligent city in the 21st century will
radically transform emergency management as we know it today.
Computing and telecommunications technologies, once separate and
well-defined, will merge and their distinctiveness will blur.
Mobile wireless and Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) will serve
as the telecommunications backbone over which municipal management
information systems will synchronize and orchestrate the various
functions of government agencies and departments. Traditional
organization and separation of municipal departments and
agencies
will undergo significant change as the intelligent city makes
interdependent relationships more concrete and dynamic.
Resource
allocation will become more efficient as implementation of
comprehensive planning becomes more tangible. Rather than
existing
largely as a separate and distinct function which is called upon
during times of crisis as it is today, emergency management will
become integrated into every facet of municipal planning and
operations. The intelligent city will incorporate each of the
elements of emergency management (preparedness, response,
recovery
and mitigation) into its overall planning and operational
matrix.
Introduction
In the hundred years or so since its introduction, the automobile
fundamentally changed the world. Its effects can be seen having
shaped both cities and institutions. Similarly, digital
technologies, which are still in their genesis, will, over time,
have impacts of equal or greater magnitude, reshaping our cities
and institutions. The role of emergency management in ensuring
public health and safety will be modified by the coming changes.
What form these changes will take can be surmised by evaluating
trends in telecommunications, computing, cybernetics, government,
industry, education and emergency management.
Cybernetics, Automation, and Intelligence
The field of cybernetics holds the key to the intelligent city.
Cybernetics is the study of control and communication processes in
electronic, mechanical and biological systems. Cybernetics has the
ability to synthesize and simulate intelligent systems and can
provide the means for improving planning, decision-making and
problem-solving processes, in some cases automating them.
Introducing automation requires planning, which implies prediction
and control, all of which requires communication. The emphasis on
design and planning within the context of applied cybernetics in
the intelligent city will be flexibility, with a built-in capacity
for change. The total system will be dynamic, where various
subsystems can adjust as required to maximize the well being of the
whole system. Such adjustment will be affected by a concept in
cybernetics called "negative feedback," wherein systems modify
their behavior in light of changes in the environment. Real-time
modeling will occur whereby subsystems can run "what ifs" and then
feed the results to a central processor which compares all
subsystem results and passes either positive or negative feedback
to subsystems. The desired results of one subsystem will thus be
in relation to all other subsystems affected. An optimized
condition is reached when all subsystems therefore act as one
toward achieving the desired goal. Lack of organization,
interagency conflict, inefficient use of resources, and other
problems oftentimes encountered in emergency management will no
longer be commonplace. In a reductionist sense, many of these
problems can be attributed to barriers of time and space which are
rapidly breaking down.
The City as an Organism
To better understand the concept of the intelligent city, it is
helpful to draw an analogy with the natural world. With 13 billion
years to equilibrate and optimize, natural systems are a superior
model for perfecting manmade systems. Organisms naturally tend
towards homeostasis, a condition of physiological equilibrium
produced by the balancing of functions within the organism. In
homeostasis, a change of state in one part of the system elicits a
response from other parts of the system to maintain balance. The
intelligent city will, in many respects, operate very much like an
organism, monitoring its various component systems and responding
accordingly to potential or actual changes of state in order to
maintain equilibrium. This sensitivity to potential or actual
changes affecting the equilibrium of the city will have important
ramifications on emergency management. As conditions favoring
disaster are detected, the intelligent city will respond
accordingly, heightening readiness as appropriate. The intelligent
city will assimilate knowledge of hazards and implement hazard
mitigation as an integral component of its overall functionality.
As feedback processes are built into the intelligent city, the
system will learn from its mistakes and improvements will occur.
This learning capability already exists today, albeit in a
rudimentary form, in neural networks.
When an organism experiences a pending or actual change of state,
information is distributed among and between all other parts of the
system and changes are made accordingly. For example, if food is
absent, the metabolic rate might slow down as the organism seeks
homeostasis. Similarly, when a city is threatened by a pending or
actual hazard which puts lives and/or property at risk, emergency
managers interact with different departments and agencies in
anticipation of changes which must be made to reduce losses or
avoid them altogether. Emergency management is basically all about
managing and coordinating a complex system. While the organism has
a highly responsive information collection and distribution system
consisting of a brain and nervous system, the city, as we know it
today, does not. The vulnerability of man's artificial environment
exists today because of the absence of an effective communication
and control system, creating a permanent condition of asymmetry
which leaves society open to disasters. As telecommunication and
computing technologies are used to interconnect all municipal
subsystems, the city's nervous system will be in place and a
condition of equilibrium will be defined. The responsiveness of
the city to pending or actual changes will then improve, as
deviation away from the optimal condition will be both predictable
and correctable.
If we view the intelligent city like an organism, experiencing
countless actions and reactions, we can see that unless these
actions and reactions are intelligently managed and coordinated,
then the system experiences chaos and crisis. When an outside
force such as a natural hazard acts upon the system, a disturbance
in the system occurs, upsetting the balance and chaos ensues.
Catastrophes are the ultimate expression of a natural hazard acting
upon a system made vulnerable due to the absence of an effective
control and communication system. In point of fact, our definition
of a hazard -- implying undesirable qualities -- is only in
relation to the effect it has on our artificial systems. A value
judgment is being made. A hurricane is not intrinsically bad. We
only view it as such because of our poor adaptation. A good
example of this is our proclivity to develop in the floodplain.
In a sense, our disasters are evidence of our failure to model
ourselves after biologic systems. The refined control and
communication systems in species are principally manifested as
self-control, i.e. adaptation, which sometimes implies withdrawal
from harmful environments and acclimatization to more favorable
ones. In manmade systems this could mean passive acceptance of the
hazard (e.g. purposeful non-development allowing high hazard areas
to revert back to their natural state) rather than active
resistance (e.g. strengthening building codes).
Tools and Technology
High bandwidth capacity provided by a combination of both wire
(including fiber) and wireless transmission mediums will make
connectivity "anytime, anywhere" a reality. Data speeds in the
gigabyte and terabyte ranges will carry two-way audio, full motion
video, and text between both stationary and mobile locations.
Telecommunications and computers will merge, becoming nearly
indistinct, and will link the various subsystems of the city, e.g.
transportation, energy, waste, etc. through a MAN (metropolitan
area networks) into an overall system imbued with intelligence. AA
single knowledge base, feeding and being fed by numerous
subsystems, will serve as the "brain" of the intelligent city. For
example, in the event of an emergency, traffic patterns will be
changed automatically to permit orderly evacuation and/or rendering
of aid. Spatial intelligence, combining information provided by
next generation GPS and GIS, will drive radiodirection,
radiolocation and navigational guidance systems to pilot vehicles
and regulate and disperse traffic flows. Technology for storm
prediction and tracking will improve, increasing the reliability
and accuracy of preparedness activities (e.g. warning and
evacuation). Automated forecasts and historical data will be
matched and likely scenarios will be plotted. Computer aided
education and simulations using virtual reality will be used for
training exercises. Emergency warning and notification systems
will extend into the home and the workplace, taking advantage of
the "anytime, anywhere" model of connectivity.
Intelligent Assistants
While decision-making in emergency management can frequently make
the difference in life or death situations and we would not wish to
place exclusive trust in an automated system, certainly processing
the many variables which rapidly change during an incident is
beyond human capability and this is where a certain amount of
automation can be helpful. Such automation is the domain of the
"intelligent assistant," a revolutionary tool for aiding people who
perform tasks which cannot be automated.
The intelligent assistant will be the result of combining expert
systems, decision support systems and artificial intelligence.
They will be portable, appliance-like and will utilize natural
language processing and voice recognition. They will be useful for
problem solving, outlining emergency procedures and role
clarification. The intelligent assistant will be utilized to make
situation reports and will provide specific guidance to the user on
task ordering and completion. The plethora of incoming reports,
which are common during crises will be machine filtered, undergoing
preliminary checks for accuracy and reliability, then passed on to
the emergency manager for consideration as part of his/her decision
support system. Situation reports will be fed into the cities'
common knowledge base where modeling will occur. Predicted
outcomes along with actual and suggested interventions will be
implemented and communicated via the cities' control and
communication systems. Information on damages and losses will be
captured and immediately translated into resource requirements for
both response and recovery. Crisis events will be recorded in
great detail, capable of replay for simulations and training
purposes.
Human Factors
It is fairly certain that in the future, public debt, insurance
industry losses, and the trend toward greater societal equity will
result in an increase in the responsibility the individual bears
for his or her actions upon society. Institutions which currently
absorb and then spread losses (government and insurance) across
society will undergo a transformation as society systematically
goes about the business of mitigating hazards rather than creating
or sustaining them. How much of this will occur through
legislation and how much will occur through market forces can not
be known at this time.
As the impact of control and communications systems become
widespread, there is a danger of their misuse along totalitarian
lines. The dangers of control and conditioning have been amply
described in George Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'Brave New World'.
Subtle intrusiveness of sensing and monitoring functions in the
intelligent city will create a tension between the rights of the
individual versus the well-being of society. Issues of privacy
need to be balanced with monitoring activities of people. There is
no denying that control can be a threat to civil liberty. In the
interest of society, however, it is possible that a reforging of
what constitutes the unalienable rights of the individual will
occur.
While change may bring about prejudice in people affected, feedback
processes in the intelligent city will be personalized to mitigate
such adverse reactions. As individuals learn more about how they
affect and are affected by others, resistance to change will
diminish.
In addition to simple adaptation from negative feedback (reactive),
complex adaptation through learning (proactive) is also possible
and has the greatest potential for avoiding damages and losses in
the future. The lag time between the gaining of new knowledge
through experience and the dissemination of that knowledge in ways
to effect change will be reduced considerably by improved
information capture, processing and distribution. Maintenance
learning, i.e. maintaining the status quo, will give way to
innovative learning. The separation of education and work will end
and the two will become almost indistinguishable from one another.
This will occur for three reasons: 1) real learning is
experiential, i.e. on the job; 2) the time lag between gaining new
knowledge and its implementation is wasting valuable resources; and
3) a measurable return on investment in creating new knowledge must
be gained if further investment is to take place. This has
important implications for emergency management in extending
hazards reduction into all phases and aspects of society.
Government and Change
The future of state and local government will be shaped by a
combination of forces, including technology, politics, economics,
demographics and environmental changes. As futurist Alvin Toffler
has indicated in his book 'The Third Wave', strong leadership will be
replaced by local and individual action. Government will provide
the resources, especially the learning mechanisms, to equip
individuals for their increased responsibilities. Government will
encourage self-sufficiency in preparedness, response, recovery and
hazard mitigation within individual neighborhoods and communities.
Government will become less top-heavy, more flat and decentralized,
following similar trends in the economy and business sectors.
Continued decreases in federal aid will demand that local
governments realize greater efficiency and look for economies of
scale in service delivery. This will be accomplished by increased
privatization of public services and government stimulating
self-sufficiency at the local level. Geologic, fire, wind, and flood
hazard districts will be created to raise funds for hazard
mitigation. Citizens will have more control over the activities of
government which affect them. Citizen access to government will
increase through direct participation in decision-making via
telecommunications, making most, if not all, representative forms
of government obsolete. Government's primary job will be to inform
and educate.
Local government has become more complex and fragmented. At best,
departments don't work in concert, at worst their objectives are at
complete odds with one another. Applied cybernetics will eliminate
the incongruities between government agencies, operating not in
isolation but in relation to all other departments and agencies
within government.
Continuum and Sustainability
By necessity, planning will play a critical role in the design and
development of the intelligent city. Hazard identification will be
incorporated into the fabric of infrastructure design, planning and
operations. Agency actions will be in concert with one another
throughout the municipality as decision-making and plan "checks"
will occur with every other agency in the municipality. Within
this matrix, planning and operations are a continuum, feedback and
corrections are immediate, and accommodation or rejection of
innumerable actions take place. Crises either have their origin in
nature, or occur through unintentional and impersonal factors
inherent in human agency. The intelligent city will detect ever
earlier stages of the causations of crises, enabling us to better
prevent or minimize them. The relationship between risk and cost
will be better understood and individualized. Mechanisms for
mutual aid will improve, as cities and states will be linked
through what is now taking shape under the guise of the "national
information superhighway." Through these interconnections, cities
will compare experiences and learn from one another. Vulnerable
infrastructure in high hazard areas will be identified and
systematically retired.
Conclusion
Within the intelligent city, emergency management will become more
proactive rather than reactive as it is today. Emergencies will
occur with less frequency in the intelligent city as "unexpected
situations" or "sudden occurrences" decrease with applied
cybernetics. Virtually all of the technologies necessary to
construct the intelligent city have already been introduced, albeit
some (e.g. natural language processing) in rudimentary form.
Technological forces in computing and telecommunications have
already precipitated dramatic changes in the manner and style in
which cities operate. While we are in the infancy of consciously
merging the various components, the groundwork for the intelligent
city is already being laid, changing the municipal landscape and
transforming both the theory and practice of emergency management
forever.
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