Development of a Support System for Choosing an Evacuation Facility Used by People Requiring Assistance at a Disaster

Abstract

In recent years, people requiring assistance at a disaster such as elderly people and persons with disabilities account for more than 60 percent of casualties due to natural disasters. Consequently, the number of those casualties can be reduced through applying highly effective disaster prevention reduction measures to them. Therefore, early realization of both frameworks, safety confirmation which is carried out immediately after the occurrence of a disaster and the guidance which leads people to an appropriate evacuation facility for each of them, is desired because of their high effectiveness. A system to choose an evacuation facility which works on a mobile terminal is a candidate as a solution of this problem. However, no system providing functions and user interface design which consider about individual handicap of people requiring assistance at a disaster has been development yet. In this paper, a prototype system for choosing an evacuation facility in consideration of individual handicap of people requiring assistance at a disaster and for carrying out safety confirmation had been developed and its usefulness was confirmed through being evaluated by future users.