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 stand-alone campus emergency reporting app. These outcomes suggest a number of recommendations for improving outdated campus emergency information-sharing systems and response strategies.