Emergency response systems: research directions and current challenges

Emergency response is the most critical phase in emergency management. This primarily returns to the importance of direct interference right after the incident occurrence to save lives and protect properties. Therefore, decision making and resource coordination in such situations are very challenging. Information systems to support emergency response have been existing since decades. However, due to the complexity nature of emergency response, most of these systems still inadequate to effectively support all the required capabilities of emergency response. This paper aims to provide non-comprehensive classifications of the major research works related to the development of emergency response systems (ERSs). Specifically, this paper classifies the identified research works into generic themes (directions) to help in understanding the variety of approaches and technologies used to support the emergency response. In addition, this paper attempts to highlight the major current challenges and research gaps that can help in defining a future research agenda and encouraging further work in this domain.