Community-based Hazard Warnings in Rural Sri Lanka: Performance of Alerting and Notification in a Last-Mile Relay Nuwan Waidyanatha, LIRNEasia Gordon A. Gow, University of Alberta Peter S. Anderson, Simon Fraser University

Background  Last-mile Hazard Warning System, Sri Lanka: IDRC-funded, Sarvodaya and LIRNEasia lead organizations. 32 participating villages, households Evaluate five wireless ICTs deployed in various conditions for their suitability in the last-mile of a warning system Not a “public warning” system Closed user group of first responders, who alert local communities Multiple components to the study, including: Common Alerting Protocol Social and cultural factors (adoption and use, gender) Paper reports on a subset of indicators for reliability and effectiveness

5 ICTs Tested for Reliability and Effectiveness in the Last-Mile CDMA Fixed Phone GSM Mobile Phone Remote Alarm Device Addressable Radios for Emergency Alerts Very Small Aperture Terminals

LM-HWS Components and their functions  Staff at the HIH monitor hazard events around-the-clock  When an “Event of Interest” is detected, HIH follows a protocol that may result in the issuance of a message to ICT Guardians over multiple modes  ICT-Gs receive messages and acknowledge receipt  If urgent or high-priority alerts, ICT-Gs notify local ERP-Coordinators in the community using locally agreed on methods  In real cases, ICT-Gs and ERP-Cs will await official warnings  In live tests, ERP-Cs activated local ERP and were timed

Multiple Paths, Multiple Technologies and Multiple Gateways

HazInfo Project Research Design With ERP TrainingNo ERP Training SarvodayaStage 1, 2, 3 VSAT Urawatha (Galle) MoP Nidavur (Batticalo) FxP Thirukadalar (Trincomalee) AREA Moratuwella (Colombo) MoP Meddhawatha (Matara) MoP Thambiluvil (Kalmunai) FxP Oluville (Kalmunai) AREA Maggona (Kalutara) AREA + RAD Modarapallassa (Hambantota) AREA + FxP Wathegama North (Matara) AREA + MoP Palmunnai (Batticalo) Control Village Abeyasinghepura (Ampara) AREA + RAD Thondamanar (Jaffna) AREA + FxP Karathivu (Kalmunai) AREA + MoP Munnai (Jaffna) Control Village Modara (Colombo) SarvodayaStage 4 VSAT Modaragama (Hambantota) MoP Diyalagoda (Kalutara) FxP Periyakallar (Batticalo) AREA Panama North (Ampara) MoP Satur-kondagnya (Batticallo) MoP Samodhagama (Hambantota) FxP Indivinna (Galle) AREA Brahamana- wattha (Galle) AREA + RAD Kalmunai II (Kalmunai) AREA + FxP Samudragama (Trincomalee AREA + MoP Valhengoda (Galle) Control Village Mirissa South (Matara) AREA + RAD Venamulla (Galle) AREA + FxP Kottegoda (Matara) AREA + MoP Thallala South (Matara) Control Village Thalpitiya (Kalutara) AREA: Addressable Radio for Emergency Alerts, Class B configuration of WorldSpace System MoP: Java enabled Mobile Phone, Dialog-Microimage innovation MiDews application RAD: Remote Alarm Device, Dialog-University-of-Moratuwa Innovation FxP: CDMA Wireless Fixed Phones with 1xRTT functions, Sri Lanka Telecom VSAT: Very Small Aperture Terminals coupled with Internet Public Alerting System Innovative-Tech & Solana Networks

Reliability measure of the Terminal Devices  Basic question: “Did the ICT work on the day of the exercise?”  Two aspects of Reliability measure: Certainty and Efficiency Certainty is the operational state of the device (variable: R c ) Efficiency is the time taken to complete the transmission (variable: R e ) Reliability R = R c x R e

Calculating the CERTAINTY of a device receiving an alert  Examples of mishaps during live-exercises in rural communities User accidentally deletes the tri-language J2ME applet in mobile phone Mobile phone is powered down or battery has zero energy User removes the 2 AA batteries and powers down the AREA Antenna in AREA is not aligned for maximum signal strength CDMA phone bill was not paid and service is discontinued User covers VSAT modem ventilation shafts with news paper and over heats modem RAD not registered in DEWNS Internet bases alerting application

Calculating the EFFICIENCY of transmitting to a device : time taken to complete transmission : benchmark time transmission must be completed : minimal allowable time interval to impact when The alert should be received well before the predicted time of hazard impact. Some devices require more time for inputting and transmitting alert message.

Example of Calculating the Efficiency Tsunami Event occurred at 10:15am and will impact at 11:45 External source issued bulletin at 10:25am HIH Monitor receives at 10:35am HIH Monitor issues CAP alert at 10:46am The scenario is based on the Panama (Ampara District) simulation data ICT Guardian receives CAP alert over AREA-B at 11:02am ERP Coordinator receives alert information at 11:08am Community completes evacuation at 11:08am Efficiency of ICT Network and ICT Guardian activities Assumption: since this is the first set of trials and the LM-HWS has no data to calculate an ‘expected time we set (i.e. best case scenario)‏

Effectiveness of Terminal Devices in conveying a warning message  Evaluated using a set of 11 discrete parameters Language diversity (ethnicity) Full CAP capability (all-media, all-hazards) Audio and text medium availability (communicability) Total cost of ownership (affordability) DC power consumption (longevity) Daily utilization (adoptability) Upstream Downstream communication (bi-directionality) Weight of wireless ICT (portability) Acknowledgment of message receipt (accountability) Geographical Signal coverage (ubiquity) Active alerting functionality (wakeup)  A score between 0 and 1 is given for each parameter

Calculating the overall Effectiveness of the Terminal devices  Each parameter in denoted by a literal:  A ‘Liken” type rating is used to obtain a real valued score between 0 and 1 is for each literal:  Design requirements of the ICT Terminal device is denoted by a conjunction of the literals:  Overall effectiveness of the of the ICT Terminal device:

Calculating the Effectiveness Parameter: Active Alert Function  Concerns the ability of the Terminal device to get the attention of the message recipient: ICT-G  Ideally the alert feature should work on all of the sensory domains  Researchers need to develop a better methodology by applying Human Computer Interface (HCI) or Man Machine Interface (MMI) Theory

NA planner should consider the deployment of multiple devices with the aim of achieving complementary redundancy in reliability and effectiveness NA – Not Applicable

Summary  Last-mile Hazard Warning System, Sri Lanka: Efficiency is good in most cases (< 1min.) Effectiveness varied widely, indicating user training and deployment issues AREA shows high reliability but lower effectiveness than expected MOP effective but with some reliability issues When combined, devices can provide complementary redundancy AREA (reliable) + MOP (effective) Implications: deploy technologies that provide complementary redundancy Adopt Common Alerting Protocol for consistent messaging Need to further refine reliability and effectiveness measures