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a. Operational Demands

Last modified by Mark Rinse van Koningsveld on 2025/09/08 09:58

Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) operations take place in challenging conditions that impose specific operational demands on responders and technology. This section of the SYNERGISE USAR project wiki outlines the real-world context in which USAR teams work across Europe, ensuring our system design is grounded in actual field needs. It is informed by practitioner interviews, INSARAG guidelines, and field observations. The following subpages detail key aspects of the operational environment and how they influence requirements:

  • 1. Environment – Describes the physical and operational conditions of disaster sites (e.g. collapsed structures, hazards, weather).

  • 2. FR Organisation – Explains USAR team hierarchy, interagency coordination, and how structures vary across European countries.

    • Task division in USAR missions – Illustrates how tasks are split among team members at a rescue site and how work is coordinated on the ground.

    • ASR levels – Defines the five sequential Assessment, Search and Rescue (ASR) levels (ASR1–ASR5) and clarifies which teams perform which phases of operation

  • 3. Stakeholders – Direct and indirect stakeholders of the SYNERGISE use cases and scenario

  • 4. Personas & Problem Scenarios – Personas created for the use cases as well as the problem scenario's relating to those personas

Each page highlights implications for system design and provides links to related topics (e.g. Stakeholders, Personas, Use Cases, Human Factors). This modular guide allows engineers, human-factors experts, and stakeholders to navigate the complex USAR context and align the SYNERGISE system with operational reality.