XENIOS

Name of the provider (company name or main contact name), or FIRE IN ID ? XENIOS Project Consortium: CREATIVE PEOPLE, Laboratory of Forest Management and Remote Sensing, Demokritos – Environmental Research Laboratory (INRASTES, NCSRD), KE.ME.A, NAGREF, HAO DIMITER, SNPMB, Typorama

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Short description of the solution. Technical details if relevant. Keywords.

Tourism is a major driver of economic growth in Greece. Therefore, great attention and effort are required to offer quality services to visitors/tourists who should feel safe and relaxed when visiting tourist areas. A positive experience for tourists begins with the features of the site they visit, whether it is archaeological, cultural, environmentally unique, recreational, etc. However, they must also feel that adequate attention is paid to them and their well-being. Such attention includes receiving reliable information regarding the features of the site they are interested in as well as feeling safe. The importance of safety for tourism can be substantiated easily by looking at the speed with which tourist destinations change as the result of emerging threats; a frequent phenomenon in recent years. A case in point is the internationally negative tourism promotion of Greece in 2007, when the archaeological site of Olympia was gravely damaged by the severe August fires.

The proposed XENIOS project aims at developing services for the short-, medium- and long-term forecast of extreme natural events and natural disasters in areas of particular tourist and cultural interest, which are also vulnerable to natural hazards. This way, it contributes to more effective management of these risks. In addition, the project aspires to enhance safety and improve the tourism product at these sites, through a mobile app which will offer visitors prompt and reliable information. XENIOS will propose solutions for: i) providing comprehensive information to the competent site management bodies on time, and ii) supporting these bodies for issues related to managing the means and methods to protect both the visitors and the surrounding area from natural events and disasters.

Depending on the nature of the information, forecasts will be available in the form of clear maps, alerts or brief reports, through an online application and mobile app, which will be designed for this purpose according to user needs. The proposed combined platform that will host these services will function interactively throughout the risk management levels, from the local (cultural/tourist site) to the regional and national ones, by exchanging informational material, and real-time status reports and updates. To develop these services, selected satellite and meteorological data as well as field and aerial data, will be processed and analysed accordingly, in order to support the predictions in different spatial and temporal scales. The collaborating research and business bodies possess the required experience and know-how to ensure both timely planning as well as sound implementation of the services and final platform. Finally, all conditions for the commercial exploitation of the end results will be examined and studied in detail by drawing up a comprehensive business plan.

TRL of the proposed solution - Innovation stage (if applicable) 7-8: System/Subsystem development

Web addresses/URL of flyers and information https://xenios-project.eu/

Attachment (file) XENIOS abstract.pdf (128 kB)

Expected/scheduled future developments

Based on the operational and technical needs derived from the aforementioned study, a Business Process Model (BPM) has been developed that describes the way each system component is used while fulfilling those needs, respecting legal, ethical, and societal constraints. The BPM led to the use cases and the interconnected and interrelated components, also defining the methods, processes, interfaces, and flow of information between them. The high-level architecture and the services offered have been designed accordingly.

More specifically, the XENIOS system consists of the following early warning components: Fire Forecast System (FFS), Meteorological Risks (MRS), Fire Danger Forecast (FDF), and the Flood Danger Forecast System (FDFS). Interfacing with the tourists is achieved via the dedicated XENIOS Mobile Application (XMA), which provides visitors with useful information regarding points of interest and tours, in different languages, whereas in the case of an emergency it will act as the visitor’s safe exit navigator, taking advantage of the incorporated emergency plans addressed to visitors.

XENIOS provides its own ticketing system but can also interoperate with existing ones for keeping count of visitors in the monitored areas. Moreover, it interoperates with UAVs using the UAV Support Request (USR) system and receives visitors’ dispersion data along with live video footage from the area requested by its operators. XENIOS is enhanced with emergency plans (customized for each monitored area), it is accompanied by a VOIP subsystem, and it provides a fully functional operation center for crisis management, featuring call center capabilities, supporting visitors of the touristic attraction areas.

The above sophisticated and state-of-the-art subsystems are orchestrated by the XENIOS Core (XC), which utilizes other core components such as the Forecaster, the Alerter and the Reporter for managing requests and data handling in and out of the system, whereas the Web Services Provider and Communication Middleware (WSP) provide data feed from XENIOS to other legacy systems. The system’s architecture follows a modular design, allowing other early warning or information components to be easily incorporated and feed information into the system as pluggable components.

All the research and development actions described above will be tested in two different touristic areas, the Samaria Gorge National Park and the Archaeological Park of Dion at the base of Mount Olympus in Greece. These tests will focus and address the fire and flood hazards, respectively, in close cooperation with the managing entities of each site. The pilot operations will provide the necessary feedback and evaluation, leading to a modular solution that will operate at all levels of risk management from local to regional, exchanging information and updating with status reports and real-time information.

Generic comments

This research has been co-financed by the European Union and Greek national funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, under the call RESEARCH–CREATE–INNOVATE (project acronym: XENIOS, project code: T1EDK- 02219).