Fire, floods, mass traffic accidents, leaks of hazardous substances, explosions, natural disasters, crowd hysteria, and workplace or industrial accidents. We are witnessing or participating in these types of emergency and crisis situation, either personally or through the media, every day. These situations are managed by teams of professionals – rescue teams, firefighters, and police officers, who need to work together according to defined rules of cooperation.
In an emergency it is not easy to act rationally, to command, to make decisions, or to communicate the situation to the media. One way to learn to prepare for these crisis situations is to use simulators. The Centre of Simulation Technologies (CESIT) founded in 2019 at the Faculty of Safety Engineering of VSB – Technical University of Ostrava uses both virtual reality simulators (XVR) and physical reality like the Crisis Management Simulator (SIMPROKIM).
CESIT is a unique workplace for developing the professional skills, competencies and knowledge of students, legal entities, local authorities, and also the population as a whole. The centre serves students of the faculty, where it is an integral part of teaching, and as a commercial partner in the training of crisis staff and the security and rescue services of the Czech Republic.
CESIT is the largest centre which specialises in XVR in the Czech Republic. It offers the option of simulating real emergencies within the University and within the commercial environment.
Students have the opportunity to use predefined simulations of real environments, such as industrial zones, residential areas, and tunnels, which are created on the basis of case studies and are part of XVR software. At the same time, they can work with newly created real situations that correspond to local events, for example, they can perform a simulated intervention directly on the University campus, or detect defects in machines within the scope of work safety. Everything is based on programming in virtual reality.
CESIT contains a total of 9 active positions for student training and 14 positions for passive observation of a specific XVR simulation task. According to the scenario specific conditions are created for each crisis situation. Students must then divide their roles, so that they can deal with the emergency and work within a team according to the given rules.
An integral part of the functioning of the Centre for Simulation Technologies is the presence of experts from practice, who become invaluable teachers. They are experts who have worked for decades or are still working in rescue and security forces or fire brigades at a regional and national level. Students learn step by step to solve complex situations and communicate them from the perspective of the emergency services or the mass media. For this purpose, the simulator of the Surrounding World is used to simulate the activities of operation centres and other members of the security and rescue teams, and the Mediaroom Simulator is used to teach crisis communication. Technical and operational management of the teaching process is performed from the control room.
The Faculty of Safety Engineering of VSB – Technical University of Ostrava provides comprehensive education in safety fields focused on safety engineering and fire protection within bachelor's, master's and doctoral programmes in Czech and English, culminating in a state final examination. It also offers short-term study within the exchange programme of universities and also international summer schools. Graduates of the faculty work as crisis managers, security managers, fire and security specialists, or HSE managers in public administration and in the private sector.
