Safety apps are a great idea but social media is a lot more effective during emergencies

Mobile applications for disaster situations is a novel concept to co-ordinate emergency response efforts. It has the potential to quickly mobilise people and personnel, provide the necessary information, and co-ordinate rescue efforts. An application can possibly reduce the damage to people and property during an ongoing crisis. However, in an emergency situation such as a terrorist strike, natural calamity or riots, it is social media that invariably turns out to be the true savior.

Ahead of the UEFA Champions League Finals, 170,000 football fans are expected to flock to the Principality Stadium at Cardiff, in the United Kingdom. The Cardiff city council has launched a safety application just ahead of the event, according to a report in the BBC. The application provides push notifications of any major incidents in the city, including fires, floods or terrorist attacks. The app contains first aid videos and instructions on what to do in case of a terrorist attack.

Mobile apps seems like the way forward in the sense that they can provide information on what to do where to go and keep users informed in the case of a catastrophe. If necessary, the application will also provide information on evacuation points. Fortunately or unfortunately, if the evacuation points are notified during a terrorist strike, even the terrorists will come to know of the information.

The problem

If an application already prepares the people in advance of an emergency situation, when a calamity occours, people are bound to recall the evacuation zones and other details. Push notifications with clear instructions on what to do and where to go will help people panic less. However, it is unlikely that people will interface with the application the first time when an incident occours. The major problem here is that emergency situations are very rare, and it is unlikely that most people will anticipate and prepare for such a situation, through a standalone application.

Only the paranoid and the safety conscious are going to install a standalone safety application, that they are going to use very rarely, if at all. They serve no purpose for most of the time they are installed on the device. The Cardiff Evac application is a failure to begin with, because it has a narrow use case scenario. It expects people to install a standalone application for safety, in addition to any application the city offers to tourists for general purposes, or an application for the championships.

The Solution? Integration

Every major event has an application (Google I/O, MWC, Champions League etc.). There are details on the various activities in different locations, as well as the entry and exit points. Usually, there is also information on where to find medical assistance. The emergency features can more easily be integrated into the event application itself.

If the municipal council has an application for tourists visiting the city, the emergency features are better off integrated into this app as well. More than an App, an API (Application Programming Interface) will go a long way in allowing any developer to integrate the safety features into their applications.

Providing evacuation information, and directions for the people in a crisis makes more sense integrated into other apps, as users are more likely to download more general purpose apps. In the case of football, the app will show scores, tweets, commentary and the like, and the safety information pops up on the same popular app when required. The biggest hurdle for a standalone application is to get people to install it. The safety features should be available without requiring any extra effort on the part of the people.

The alerts for safety ideally should show up similar to how Google Maps indicates potential traffic situations. Integration of the safety features with applications everyone has makes more sense than expecting users to download a dedicated application. AI assistants, mapping services, and popular social media applications are the best platforms for delivering safety information. A sure way to get critical information to those who need it is to simply track movement of large crowds and use SMS.

Integrating safety features into an OS is be a better idea for Google’s Android or Apple iOS instead of a third party app. In the US, there is such an implementation, called the Wireless Emergency Alerts . These alerts are delivered to users without the need to subscribe to a service, or install an application. There are alerts for extreme weather, emergency situations, abducted children, and presidential alerts during a national emergency.

Why social media is a better idea

Emergency services are already integrated into smartphones in the form or cell broadcasts. But more people will have Twitter installed as compared to a standalone safety app and social media is a public channel to reach out to anyone or everyone in the case of a terrorist attack or a calamity. There is better coverage on social media about an attack as compared to an app that does nothing after catastrophe has struck.

Emergency response cannot always be a top down effort, it needs to work from the ground up as well. In a long drawn out situation, such as the Syrian Civil War , it is Twitter that provides the on ground information to both the local population and the world. In the shortage of reliable information, the Carter Center’s Conflict Resolution Program used Twitter to map the conflict in Syria. Closer back home, when the officer of a ship was stuck in Aden, Yemen, he sent an SOS to Sushma Swaraj , who scolded him for ignoring a travel advisory, but arranged for his rescue.

In case of an emergency situation, everyone is going to default to social media. Even if an application notifies those who have installed it, about evacuation points and safety measures, these users are then going to feed the same information into social media, where the information is going to be circulated more widely. Social media allows for the spread of more granular information, the relevant details specific to an ongoing situation. It also empowers the people affected to co-ordinate among themselves.

Cardiff’s Evac app is a great preventive idea, but a twitter hashtag is far more effective.