YVR approached us to provide a genuine stress test for digital responders belonging to its own team and those of key airport stakeholders as part of a biennial exercise to test the response to a serious aircraft incident.
Given the array of audiences present in any airport, effective digital triage and engagement has a critical role to play in:
- Enabling airlines and airport agencies to share real-time updates with passengers and staff in terminals
- Allowing emergency responders to establish situational awareness in relation to the situation (e.g. location of casualties, nature and scale of incident)
- Providing ‘line of sight’ with the communications output of other agencies for a coordinated response
Using our Simulator platform we engaged and challenged different airport agencies by delivering real-time Twitter and Facebook-style feeds including passenger queries, witness imagery and accounts, as well as live on-scene reporting by journalists and media outlets. We also tested how responders managed misinformation emerging on social media channels.
Our live writer developed real-time media articles to bring the scenario to life and a team of telephone role-players put airport media handlers through their paces.
Findings highlighted during the training have led to updates being made to YVR’s incident communications protocol.
