The EU-funded H2020 project PROACTIVE led by the UIC Security Division held two workshops at the end of February 2021, one with their Practitioner Stakeholder Advisory Board (PSAB) and one with their Civil Society Advisory Board (CSAB). Eighteen first responders participated in the PSAB workshop and around ten members considered as experts or researchers in the field of vulnerability participated in the CSAB workshop.
The purpose of these events was to collect first impressions and feedback on the current version of the PROACTIVE Mobile App, which is being developed by project partner Rinisoft. Both workshops followed the same structure: after being introduced to the project by UIC, the workshop began with an incident led discussion based on a virtual tabletop exercise and concluded with a session introducing the PROACTIVE Mobile App & discussing Digital Accessibility.
Participants from both workshops were provided the same fictitious attack scenario, involving a suspected chemical attack set on a train carriage. This scenario was used to facilitate discussions with both groups regarding their response and how the PROACTIVE Mobile App could help them during such an incident.
Next, the PROACTIVE Mobile App was showcased to participants. The main features presented were the difference between registered and non-registered civil users as well as Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) users, the functionalities available from the home-screen, including access to pre-incident informational materials, and how incidents could be reported by registered users and validated by LEAs.
This was followed by an interactive SLIDO quiz session with participants, who were asked nine questions concerning the functionality, design and accessibility of the app. When it came to suggestions on digital accessibility, both groups suggested to use big buttons (which would make the app more accessible to the visually impaired as well as practitioners wearing PPE gloves), ensure the app was compatible with text-to-speech software and enable translation. The most useful content for the app was seen by both groups to be “General guidelines on what to do during a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or explosive (CBRNe) Incident (Evac/Decon/ Next Steps).”
When asked to rate the app out of five stars, the PSAB gave the app 4 and the CSAB gave the app 3. A big thank you to all our participants!
Further online workshops will be held this year. By employing such scenarios, PROACTIVE will not only test and improve its tools, but will eventually produce actionable recommendations for railway stakeholders in order to improve their preparedness against the CBRNe threat.
PROACTIVE can be followed on Twitter (@PROACTIVE_EU) as well as on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/proactive-eu/) and the project website https://proactive-h2020.eu/.
