The 14 th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering October 12–17, 2008, Beijing, China A STUDY ON THE DISASTER INFORMATION COLLECTION SUPPORT SYSTEM, INCORPORATING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY A. Shibayama 1 , Y. Hisada 2 , M. Mirakami 3 , M. Endo 4 , S. Zama 4 , O. Takizawa 5 , M. Hosokawa 6 and T. Ichii 7 1 Expert Researcher, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Tokyo. Japan 2 Professor, Dept. of Architecture, The Kogakuin University, Tokyo, Japan 3 Associate Professor, Dept. of Architecture, The Kogakuin University, Tokyo, Japan 4 Researcher, National Research Institute of Fire and Disaster, Tokyo, Japan 5 Group Leader, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Tokyo, Japan 6 General Manager, Fire and Disaster Management Agency of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Tokyo, Japan 7 Sales Executive, Autonomy Corp., Tokyo, Japan Email: shibayama@nict.go.jp ABSTRACT: We have developed a support system to facilitate the rapid and effective collection of disaster information, and we have conducted operational experiments to test the system in Tokyo, Japan. We have named this system the Disaster Information Collection Support System (DICSS); it incorporates the Geographic Information System (GIS) and Information and Communication Technology (ICT). We have added additional functions to the DICSS in order to increase the efficiency of investigation, such as an information sharing function using ad hoc network technology, an information collecting function using a middle-distance laser rangefinder, and an information sharing function using a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. This improved system is a simple and user-friendly GIS specialized for collecting disaster information; it has been designed so that anyone can use it. It can change the specific data under investigation to accommodate the requirements of each individual situation, from quick inspections to rapid assessments of the safety of buildings to detailed investigations for academic purposes. When a public communications network is rendered nonfunctional by a disaster, the system is capable of securing communication between terminals by ad hoc network. It can collect information on the damage caused to a remote location from an elevated position by using laser rangefinder binoculars. We applied this system to an experiment conducted in Tokyo, Japan and confirmed its validity and effectiveness. KEYWORDS: Information Collection, Disaster Inspection, GIS, Laser Rangefinder, Ad Hoc Network, GPS 1. INTRODUCTION Since the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the national and local governments of Japan have developed systems for information collection during earthquakes, such as the Disaster Information System (DIS) developed by the cabinet office of the government of Japan, the REaltime Assessment of earthquake Disaster in Yokohama (READY) of the city of Yokohama, and the estimated seismic intensity map of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). However, it is important to keep in mind that the actual damage caused by an earthquake could be different from the estimated damage. If we rely on only the estimated information, the emergency response may be inadequate. On the other hand, the estimated information can be useful in locating the most severely affected areas at the initial stage of the damage investigation. With all of this in mind, we have proposed a real-time system for collecting earthquake damage information (Shibayama et al., 2002 [1]). In this paper, we