Major crises in recent years highlight the need for building collaborative Crisis Information ManagementSystems. An effective ontology is instrumental in establishing a solid common ground for such systems. By closely examining a generic emergency response workflow, this paper proposes a practical emergency response ontology. Using this ontology, we implement a prototype emergency evacuation planning system. This implementation demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of our proposed ontology and its potential to grow into a more completed ontology for collaborative Crisis Information Management Systems.

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Many time-critical applications, such as emergency evacuation, demand decision-makers to make prompt decisions under time pressure. Therefore, it is essential to design an intuitive and interactive User Interface to present critical information to users so that they can make effective decisions in time-critical situation. Using Ajax technology, this paper designs a GIS-based, flexible and interactive User Interface for emergency evacuation system to meet the aforementioned requirements.