Collaborative Safe Escape in Digital Transformation

Hazards are part of human life and every year thousands of people are affected by different types of natural or human provoked disasters. The evacuation is a crucial part of any rescue plan and there are many procedures and standards to support the process. Nevertheless, traditional methods and procedures need radical changes according to the “4.0” Paradigm. The rate of growth, penetration, and development of technology and more specifically what is known as emerging technologies, changing the norms and routines, and Cyber-physical systems bring intelligent to our life where Hazard Management is no exception. In this paper, a model based on emerging paradigms, called “Collaborative Safe Escape” is proposed for indoor evacuation process. This environment is based on four collaborative networks where evacuee network is a temporary network which would be created in the field when required, while the other are long-term networks with the aim to collaborate in case of hazards to assist the potential victims. The technology and the collaboration between networks create a dynamic connected environment to support the decision of potential victims. In the proposed model, smart buildings including all sensors and devices could provide rich information to be analyzed both by evacuee and rescue team. The Smart Application will keep the people involved in hazards updated by supportive information either by the rescue team or by analyzing the ambient intelligent information. The proposed idea is a future model of Safe Escape Systems in the era of Collaborative Networks and digital transformation.