Functional Exercises Sample Clauses

Functional Exercises. The purpose of a functional exercise (FE) is to test and evaluate the capabilities of an emergency response system or its parts, inter-agency cooperation and resources. The events and situations that would actually occur over an extended period of time are depicted or described. These events and situations are exposed explicitly using the VR or described orally or in writing. Unlike the drills, an FE encompasses more complete system by mixing functional and commandment levels of first responders. In the context of the HyResponse, the inter-agency level will have to be tested and evaluated as well as coordination and cooperation at the first responders: police forces, medics, fire fighters, industry experts, etc. The VR is used in much the same way as in drills but the scenarios are different and longer enabling to encompass a function and, commandment-wide, systemic response. An example of FE set-up is given on Figure 4. In this set-up, many trainees are concurrently managing an emergency response. Those trainees may include fire-fighters, medics, or other kind of first responders (e.g. multi-agency), or a full hierarchical deployment of first responders up to an incident commander including media and other institutions. ENSOSP provides a virtual training facility that may encompass very complex set-ups such as multi-agency, joined forces operations involving multiple commandment levels, from field operators up to high level commandment.