The Petri Nets as formal model to represent procedure in a passive DSS

The paper presents a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) able to support decision makers in managing preparedness and response activities in the field of Civil Protection. The system takes advantage of a database containing all the information required during the emergency response phase, that is structures, resources and address book. The SDSS supports decision makers providing them with the flow of actions to execute, strictly controlled by the laws and directives in force at a national, regional and local level. The procedure is formalized using Petri Nets, a formal model able to represents concurrent and distributed systems. When the operator chooses the right procedure, related to the actual risk, the system allows executing it and, at the same time, the system writes a log file containing all the executed actions and a timestamps. Moreover, it is possible to access to a list of instructions explaining each action of the procedure. If those instructions contain references to some actors stored in the database, the system will show them to the operator (name, phone numbers, traceability, etc.). Furthermore, at each action, the system will show all the documents to issue related to that action and will allow opening them using the text editors available on the operators' computer.