SenSE4Metro: A bi-national multi-disciplinary project for monitoring underground metro environments in disaster events

The current trend towards global urbanization and the resulting migration to underground mass transportation has resulted in an increase in security related challenges, whether due to terror attacks or natural disasters. Such mass transportation systems are highly vulnerable and require new approaches to minimize vulnerabilities and limit damage in the event of disasters. Since 2015, several German and Indian institutions have been engaged in the binational and multi-disciplinary project SenSE4Metro as part of the ""Indo-German Initiative for Civil Security Research (IGI-CSR)"". The overall objective of the project is to improve the security of persons in urban underground trains and stations in emergency situations, specifically terrorist attacks and natural disasters. This paper presents the multi-disciplinary approach applied, a discussion of the state-of-the-art and the initial results of the project, including the threat and requirements analysis.