Background
Preparedness requires a significant amount of planning and the involvement of all members of the emergency community including law enforcement, fire services, emergency management agencies, and emergency medical services. The objective of this NCHRP project was to develop a guide for use by transportation drill and exercise coordinators to assist them in the design, development, and implementation of a range of training drills and exercises. The training drills and exercises in this guide covers preparedness activities to prevent, respond to, and recover from threatened and actual domestic terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies.
Approach
Leveled tasks were performed to support the Interim Report 1, Interim Report 2, the Preliminary Draft Final Report and the Revised Final Report. Overall, an extensive literature review was conducted, telephone interviews with personnel responsible for developing and evaluating exercises in the transportation environment were held. An analysis of recommendations and guidance provided by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the DHS, Office for Domestic Preparedness (ODP) was conducted. A series of tables, matrices and graphics that transportation exercise and drill coordinators could use to support their efforts in preparing exercises for their agencies were developed.
Results
BCG created a report containing a comprehensive set of guidelines for emergency exercise development, implementation and evaluation. This includes: information on the National Response Plan and the National Incident Management System and how they affect transportation agencies; a Transportation Exercise Evaluation Guide in compliance with DHS recommendations; a template for performing a needs assessment to direct exercise programs; a set of exercise design objectives; a set of materials to support exercise development, implementation and evaluation; and a set of materials that support the development of transportation incident response typologies, for use in developing emergency exercises. This product also includes a CD-ROM of all materials.