An integrated approach to intelligent urban facilities management for real-time emergency response

Due to rapid urban growth and technological advancements, urban facilities today have become more complex and diversified. Furthermore, their malfunction and destruction by disasters tend to cause severe loss of life and property. Therefore, economical and effective management of urban facilities and facilities-related emergencies is necessary. However, the conventional approach to urban facilities management exhibits limitations in monitoring the urban-wide facilities status and handling emergency events occurring on urban facilities. To overcome the drawbacks of conventional urban facilities management, this paper proposes an integrated approach to intelligent urban facilities management for real-time emergency response based on the integration of facilities-related information and the integration of management functions. For the verification of the proposed approach, a prototype of the Intelligent Urban Facilities Management System (IUFMS) has been developed and tested. Through information integration and functional integration, IUFMS is expected to detect any abnormalities in advance and take proper measures by performing a comprehensive analysis of urban facilities and their correlations. ► An integrated approach to intelligent urban facilities management is proposed. ► Conventional approaches are limited to the post-event recovery of facilities. ► Information and functional integration are essential for emergency response. ► The proposed approach enables urban-wide, intelligent emergency response.