Decision support systems for emergency management after nuclear or radiological accidents are used in the specific case of a release of radioactive material. Their main task is to provide all the information required to decide on measures to protect the population quickly, continuously, consistently and comprehensively. Users of decision-making systems are the regional, national and international institutions and organisations responsible for emergency management. In Germany, these are the corresponding operational centres of the Federal government and the state governments.

We have been developing the real-time online decision support system JRODOS (Real-time On-line DecisiOn Support) for operational use in emergency response centres of European countries since about 1990. During the 4th Framework Programme of the European Commission, which ended in 1999, about 40 institutions from almost 20 countries of the EU, the CIS republics of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, as well as Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics and Romania were involved in the development of RODOS. The RODOS system in its latest prototype version has been installed in these countries. The ITES working group "Accident Management Systems" at the Karlsruhe Research Center (now KIT) was and is mainly responsible for RTD work and its coordination.

The first operational version PV4.0 of the RODOS system for real-time and on-line use in emergency centers was completed at the end of 2000. Together with our European contract partners, the RODOS system was continuously improved and completed with regard to its contents and functionalities until 2009 within the scope of R&D projects of the EURANOS project of the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission. The work programme was mainly defined by the experiences and wishes of current and future RODOS users. Within the scope of this work the JAVA based version of RODOS was developed (JRODOS), which is the operational version of RODOS since 2010.

Following an initiative of the German Ministry of Environment (BMU), we configured and installed the hardware and software components of the RODOS system for operation at the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) at the Central Office of the Federal Government (ZdB) in Neuherberg near Munich. After the setup and test phase in 2001, the operational operation of the RODOS central office is currently running for users of the federal and state governments. With the introduction of the Federal Situation Centre in 2019, JRODOS will be operated by BfS as an integral part of this facility.

The European Commission financed the establishment of the RODOS/JRODOS system in the national emergency response centers of European and non-European countries with funds from the TACIS, PHARE, ECHO and now DEVCO programmes. At present JRODOS is operational in more than 30 countries and installations in another 10 countries are underway.

JRODOS-installations worldwide

European research projects have brought together many users of the system and taken their interests into account in the further development of the system. This network of RODOS users and developers is continued within the RODOS Users Group. This group meets once a year to exchange experiences with the system and to discuss the possible further development of JRODOS.

More detailed information on the status of the JRODOS system with its Europe-wide installation can be found on our homepage https://resy5.ites.kit.edu/RODOS/.
 

Contact
Dr. rer. nat. Sadeeb Simon Ottenburger
KIT - Karlsruher Institut of Technology
Institute for Themal Energy Technology and Safety (ITES)
Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1
D- 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen
Tel: +49 721 608 22480
Fax: +49 721 608 28452
Email: sadeeb.ottenburger∂kit.edu

Networks/Platforms:

• NERIS

Projects:

• EURANOS
• NERIS-TP
• PREPARE
• CONFIDENCE