On Effective Campus Attack Response:Insights from Agent-Based Simulation for Improving Emergency Information Sharing System Design and Response Strategy

Information sharing systems are a critical component of emergency response—especially in campus attack situations that unfold very rapidly.The design of effective information sharing systems is often difficult,however,due to a lack of data on these assault events.This work takes an agent-based approach to simulate three campus emergency information sharing system design alternatives in the context of a college campus knife attack,and incorporates data from on-campus student surveys and parameter tuning experiments.Alternatives are evaluated according to:(1)improved student attack response outcomes;and(2)effective institutional response to the attack.The results confirm that increased awareness supports rapid emergency reporting,but an important gap exists between students'awareness and their ability to respond effectively,which depends on a number of campus-specific factors.A strong positive impact is seen from safe and efficient information sharing with authorities.This impact depends largely on reporting system implementation qualities,as opposed to campus-specific factors.On a campus in China,WeChat was used as a basis for messaging models.The simulation results show a 9%drop in casualties and a 22%faster police response time from a text-based reporting system using‘‘base''WeChat features instead of traditional phone reporting.Our results also project a 30%drop in casualties and 52%faster police response time using a system designed around a WeChat Mini Program or standalone campus emergency reporting app.These outcomes suggest a number of recommendations for improving outdated campus emergency information-sharing systems and response strategies.