Simulation analysis of the use of emergency resources during the emergency response to a major fire

• Published in: Journal of loss prevention in the process industries Vol. 44; pp. 1 - 11
• Main Authors: Zhou, Jianfeng, Reniers, Genserik
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.11.2016
• Subjects: Emergency resources; Emergency response actions; Petri nets; Simulation analysis; Emergency response actions; Emergency resources; Simulation analysis; Petri nets
• ISSN: 0950-4230
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jlp.2016.08.007

During an emergency response to an accident or disaster, emergency response actions often need to use various emergency resources. The use of resources plays an important role in the successful implementation of emergency response, but there may be conflicts in the use of resources for emergency actions. According to the emergency response in case of an oil fire, two types of emergency response models with dynamic structure are established by using Resource-Oriented Timed Colored Hybrid Petri-Net (RO-TCHPN). Type 1 model does not establish a special conflict avoidance mechanism for emergency actions, while Type 2 model uses a queuing method to avoid possible conflicts in the use of limited resources by multiple actions. In this paper, the two types of models are simulated and analyzed, including (1) emergency response process simulation, which analyzes and determines the time and the conditions of the potential conflicts occurring; and (2) comparison analysis, analyzing the improvement of the Type 2 model as compared with the Type 1 model. Increasing emergency resources to reduce or avoid conflicts and whether all the fire-trucks should be fully filled at the beginning of an emergency response, are also discussed based on the simulation. •Two types of RO-TCHPN models are established.•Emergency response to an oil fire is modeled.•One model does not specifically consider the avoidance of conflict.•A second model uses queuing method to deal with possible conflicts when multiple actions use the same limited resources.