HCP–VR: Training First Responders through a Virtual Reality

Application for Hydrogeological Risk Management

Federico De Lorenzis

, Filippo Gabriele Prattic

and Fabrizio Lamberti

Politecnico di Torino, Dip. di Automatica e Informatica (DAUIN), Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 10129 Torino, Italy

Keywords:

Virtual Reality, Training, Assessment, Scaffolding, First Responders, Simulation, Multiplayer.

Abstract:

Training First Responders (FRs) can represent a difﬁcult task due to the need for preparing trainees to face dan-

gerous situations without exposing them to actual risks. VR technology can help overcome these limitations

by offering accurate simulations in which trainees can safely experience critical scenarios while improving

their knowledge and skills about a speciﬁc procedure. In this paper, a Virtual Reality Training System (VRTS)

designed to train FRs in the High Capacity Pumping (HCP) procedure is presented. This application aims to

prepare operators through two different training modes (Guided and Evaluated) within a realistic computer-

generated scenario. A user study involving 22 operators from the Civil Protection of Regione Piemonte was

conducted to assess the learning efﬁcacy and the overall quality of the VRTS. Feedback was collected both

via qualitative evaluations and a quiz session on theoretical content. Participants praised the usability of the

application and the overall quality of the training experience. Finally, the scores of the quiz session showed a

knowledge gain associated with the use of the VRTS to train in the considered procedure.

1 INTRODUCTION

When they need to take action, First Responders

(FRs) are required to follow strict guidelines to secure

their and others’ safety, since they often work in life-

threatening situations and operate tools and machines

that can be dangerous in case of misuse. This obser-

vation is particularly true for operators that manage

crises in the event of hydrogeological disasters, who

often are called upon to act when the event is still

ongoing and must use equipment with high pump-

ing capacity that, if used carelessly, can cause victims

among both operators and civilians. It is, therefore,

necessary for FRs to undergo appropriate training that

can prepare them to face high-risk situations.

However, training in the context of the High Ca-

pacity Pumping (HCP) module of Civil Protection can

be difﬁcult. On the one side, operators must be pre-

pared to work in hostile conditions, whereas on the

other side, it is not possible to expose trainees to ac-

tual risks. Training operators using theoretical lessons

neglects the practical skills that are required during

on-ﬁeld operations. Engaging the trainees in practi-

cal exercises overcome this limitation, but presents a

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2449-9470

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7606-8552

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7703-1372

different set of problems. In particular, the equipment

for these operations includes expensive pumps whose

number is limited; if a pump is deployed for training,

it cannot be readily available in case of an emergency.

If the pump is deployed as a training device for a lim-

ited time, not all the trainees can operate it, leading to

an incomplete training process. Moreover, even if the

equipment is deployed for a sufﬁcient amount of time,

it must still be used in safe conditions to safeguard the

trainees’ health; therefore, the resulting training prac-

tice is just an approximation of a real scenario.

The restrictions above can be addressed by intro-

ducing a Virtual Reality (VR) module as a comple-

ment to the traditional HCP training, since VR tech-

nology can simulate high-risk scenarios without ex-

posing the users to actual dangers, and in particular

immersive VR applications can be used to acquire

the practical skills associated to the considered proce-

dure. In this paper, a VR application for training FRs

is presented. This VR Training System (VRTS) simu-

lates a realistic scenario where the trainees can follow

all the steps of the HCP procedure and use the rela-

tive equipment (pump, tubes, hoses, etc.). The VRTS

offers two different training modes: a Guided (or scaf-

folded) Mode to learn the different steps of the proce-

dure, and an Evaluated Mode to assess the trainee’s

knowledge and practical skills.

De Lorenzis, F., Pratticò, F. and Lamberti, F.

HCP–VR: Training First Responders through a Virtual Reality Application for Hydrogeological Risk Management.

DOI: 10.5220/0011007800003124

In Proceedings of the 17th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2022) - Volume 2: HUCAPP, pages

273-280

ISBN: 978-989-758-555-5; ISSN: 2184-4321

273

To evaluate the overall learning value, the attrac-

tiveness and the usability of the developed system, the

application was tested with volunteers from Civil Pro-

tection, and feedback was collected (before and after

the experience) and later analyzed.

The activity was performed in collaboration with

an Italian regional Civil Protection body, involving

in particular several Civil Protection and Forest Fire

Fighting Units of Piedmont Region, Italy and the

Piedmont Region Coordination body of Civil Protec-

tion Volunteering in the context of the PITEM RISK

project (for which Politecnico di Torino has been ap-

pointed as the implementing body for the Piedmont

Region). More speciﬁcally, this paper builds on a VR

application developed for the RISK FOR sub-project,

which aims at improving the training of the many ac-

tors involved in the disaster management of the AL-

COTRA region, a territory between Italy and France.

The presented activities, though, fall within the scope

of the RISK ACT sub-project, whose goal is to exploit

the outputs of RISK FOR in real-world use cases such

as the one situated in the considered application.

2 RELATED WORKS

In the last years, the use of VRTSs has seen a great

diffusion in many contexts including academia, med-

ical ﬁeld (Kaluschke et al., 2018), and industry (P

erez

et al., 2019). VRTSs have been especially useful for

training activities that are mainly focused on practical

tasks involving specialized equipment. In such cases,

training can be enhanced by learning experiences that

offer hands-on approaches (Gavish et al., 2015). It

was demonstrated that the use of VR in this type of

learning contexts can be more beneﬁcial with respect

to the use of other types of training tools, such as

printed material or video lessons. In particular, VRTS

are more effective in terms of procedural knowledge

retention and conﬁdence when compared to printed

learning tools (Buttussi and Chittaro, 2021), whereas

they are more efﬁcient in terms of retention of infor-

mation and self-efﬁcacy increment when compared

to non-immersive, video-based trainings (Lovreglio

et al., 2021). Another aspect that contribute to the

diffusion of VRTSs is the fact that VR technology is

particularly suited for the creation of training tools,

mainly due to its ability to simulate (Lateef, 2010)

real scenarios with a high level of accuracy and with-

out exposing users to the corresponding risks. For

example, it is possible to recreate an evacuation sce-

nario in the event of a road tunnel ﬁre (Calandra et al.,

2021), where the users can learn emergency regula-

tions while experiencing a realistic simulation of ﬁre

and smoke.

Based on the above considerations, VRTSs are

particularly useful for the education of FRs or other

operators that must train in practical tasks while work-

ing in dangerous situations. In facts, immersive

VR applications have been largely adopted in risk-

management contexts: for example, to train operators

in the CBRN procedure (Lamberti et al., 2021), or cri-

sis management teams (composed by policemen, ﬁre-

men and doctors) in rescue missions (Conges et al.,

2020).

An additional advantage offered by VRTSs is the

possibility to enhance the training efﬁcacy by includ-

ing automatic guiding and evaluation modules: users

can be trained and evaluated directly by the applica-

tion, therefore the presence of a trainer is not neces-

sary. Regarding the design of these modules, despite

the diffusion of VRTSs there are no standard rules to

follow during the development of a new application.

Nevertheless, it still possible to ﬁnd general guide-

lines the describes the best design practices in the lit-

erature (Feng et al., 2018). In particular, the most

common solutions for training consist in scaffolding

systems that guide the trainee step-by-step, either us-

ing audio or textual feedback (or a combination of

both). This feedback can consist either of instructions

that describe the next step of the training, or correc-

tion given to the trainee after each task. As for the

assessment of the users’ performance, the adopted so-

lutions are either run-time error signaling or the use of

a ﬁnal report that can be consulted only at the end of

the VR experience.

To conclude, the present activities build on a

previously published research activity on the use of

simulation-based VR as a mock-up tool for training

experiences (Prattic

o et al., 2021). In the above ac-

tivity, a sandbox VR application was used to support

Training Provisioners (TPs) in designing a training

experience, and this approach was compared to a stan-

dard, dramaturgy-based one. In this paper, the feed-

back and the results collected from the TPs are used

to improve that VR application and to implement a

guiding and an evaluation system into it to safely train

operators from Civil Protection.

3 METHODOLOGY

This paper presents a VR-based experience to train

operators from Civil Protection in the HCP procedure.

An existing, sandbox VR application was ﬁrst im-

proved accordingly to previously collected feedback

from Civil Protection TPs, and later used to build a

VRTS targeted to FRs.

HUCAPP 2022 - 6th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction Theory and Applications

274

3.1 HCP Module and Procedure

The HCP module is a part of the Colonna Mobile

of Civil Protection; it consists of a series of vehicles

and teams of operators that must be dispatched in the

event of a hydrogeological crisis. It is described by a

series of general guidelines that deﬁne the tools and

the overall procedure to guarantee the interoperabil-

ity of modules from different countries (”Euratom”,

2008). The procedure consists of a series of steps

that the FRs need to follow to operate high-capacity

pumps, drain ﬂooded areas and monitor water levels.

In particular, when a hydrogeological crisis oc-

curs, the FRs must wear the necessary Personal Pro-

tective Equipment (PPE), then approach and inspect

the deluged ground; this ﬁrst phase aims to assess the

situation and identify the area that must be drained

(aspiration area, generally a puddle) and the delivery

area (e.g., a river) where the water can be discharged.

The operators must then place the pump near the as-

piration area, in a feasible location for the pumping

activities: the placement must consider the character-

istics of the pump (capacity, power) and the environ-

ment (height, obstacles) since they all contribute to

the success of the operation. In case of a wrong place-

ment (e.g., too far from the aspiration area), the pump

will fail to move the water.

Once the pump is correctly placed, the operators

must delimit the operational ﬁeld and start assembling

the aspiration and delivery chains using rigid or semi-

rigid tubes and, for the latter, also foldable hoses.

The two chains must be connected to the pump and

directed to the aspiration and delivery areas, respec-

tively. The aspiration chain must end with a ﬁlter that

shall be submerged in the ﬂooded area. The operator

that places the ﬁlter must wear additional PPE (a life

vest secured with a safety rope) to limit the chances

of drowning. The delivery chain must end with a rigid

tube anchored to the ground near the delivery loca-

tion. If the delivery area is another river, a protective

sheet must be used to protect its bank.

Once the above steps have been completed, the

operators can start the pumping procedure and wait

for its completion. During this phase, they must mon-

itor the pumping activities to assess the state of the

aspiration and delivery chains and detect possible wa-

ter leakings. If leaking is detected, the procedure must

be stopped and the tubes repaired or substituted. The

operations terminate when all the water is removed

from the aspiration area.

https://www.regione.piemonte.it/web/temi/protezione-

civile-difesa-suolo-opere-pubbliche/protezione-

civile/logistica/colonna-mobile-regionale

3.2 VR Application

The application was developed for immersive VR

Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) like Vive Pro

and

Oculus Quest 2

, and the bundled hand controllers

were used to interact with the Virtual Environment

(VE). The system was implemented using Unity

, and

the VR component was handled using the SteamVR

framework. The 3D assets were created using Unity

(for the VE), Blender

(for the tools, the pump, the

vehicles, and the characters), and image-editing soft-

ware (for the textures).The logic and algorithms con-

trolling the virtual 3D objects were wirtten in the C#

programming language.

The application was initially designed as a sand-

box experience where the users can freely interact

with the tools used in the HCP procedure. The VE

was modeled as a realistic deluged area between two

rivers, near a forest but easily accessible by vehicles

(Fig. 1). The behavior of the equipment was based

on the HCP guidelines, manuals, and empirical ob-

servations collected during Civil Protection real ex-

ercises. For instance, the pump was implemented to

simulate all the necessary steps for the pumping pro-

cedure, using the instruction manual as a reference.

The users can interact with all the doors and valves

and start the pumping procedure by interacting with

the control panel. Moreover, audio feedback was used

to enhance realism and replicate the noise of the en-

gine, and a particle effect was exploited to simulate

the water ejected at the end of the delivery chain.

Figure 1: The ﬁctional environment used in the VRTS. It

is a realistic reconstruction of a deluged area between two

rivers that can be accessed easily by vehicles.

Particular care was also dedicated to the simula-

tion of the aspiration and delivery chains. Rigid tubes

were implemented as single 3D objects; semi-rigid

https://www.vive.com/us/product/vive-pro-starter-kit/

https://www.oculus.com/quest-2/

https://www.unity.com/

https://www.blender.org/

HCP–VR: Training First Responders through a Virtual Reality Application for Hydrogeological Risk Management

275

tubes and foldable hoses were handled instead as cou-

ples of different 3D elements (the end-points) con-

nected by a third element simulating the realistic be-

havior of the tube/hose itself. Regardless of the type

and the implementation, all the tubes can be assem-

bled to build the aspiration or delivery chains and can

be connected directly to the pump.

Although the user can interact with every 3D el-

ement (with the help of visual cues highlighting the

objects during the interaction), the experience can

change depending on how it is conﬁgured. In partic-

ular, the user can choose a particular task (delimiting

the operational ﬁeld, assembly of the delivery or the

aspiration chain, etc.) to activate only a subset of 3D

objects. When the chosen task requires more than one

operator, Non-Player Characters (NPCs) can help the

user (e.g., to transport the tubes). The NPCs were im-

plemented using an event-based approach and ﬁnite-

state machines. Furthermore, voice-overs were added

to the NPCs to give the general context to the users.

3.3 Improvements

As mentioned above, feedback collected during a pre-

vious study (Prattic

o et al., 2021) was used to improve

the usability and the realism of the existing applica-

tion. In particular:

• two training modes were added to the application

in order to train operators in the HCP procedure;

• the overall graphics quality of the VE was im-

proved by substituting the tree models with new

ones without billboarding effects;

• the behavior of the NPCs was modiﬁed to im-

prove the realism; some of the animations were

changed, and the parameters managing the inverse

kinematics were tuned to obtain more accurate

and esthetically-pleasing results;

• the user’s hands (previously static models holding

the 3D geometries of the HMD controllers) were

substituted with animated hands to enhance the re-

alism and the user’s sense of immersion;

• the tubes’ and hoses’ logic was changed in order

to improve the assembly interaction and the over-

all behavior (in particular the effect of gravity on

the tubes’ endpoints);

• the audio effect associated to the pump was

changed and its intensity was linked to the pump’s

doors (closing a door reduces the volume);

• a multiplayer version of the VR application was

developed to train multiple users at the same time;

in this version, two operators can work together

(Fig. 2) inside the same simulation to complete

the procedure, helping each other in assembling

the aspiration and delivery chains and in the man-

agement of the pump.

(a) (b)

Figure 2: Two operators working together in the multiplayer

version of the application: they meet and communicate at

the beginning of the simulation (a), and assemble the deliv-

ery chain, connecting a semi-rigid tube to the pump (b).

3.4 Training Modes

The results obtained in the previous study (Prattic

et al., 2021) were used to design and add two different

training modes to the existing sandbox application: a

Guided Mode (GM) and an Evaluated Mode (EM). In

particular, feedback from the TPs was used to deﬁne:

• the correct order of operations to complete the

procedure;

• the guidelines to ensure the operators’ safety;

• the theoretical content to be delivered during the

training.

The main goal of the GM is to instruct the trainees

to complete the HCP procedure, focusing not only on

the order of the operations but also on the reason be-

hind each action. In this mode, the whole procedure

is divided into micro-tasks (e.g., “take the protective

sheet and place it”), and the trainee is guided through

them by a scaffolding system using voice-overs, high-

lights and icons (Fig. 3). The voice-over is diegetic,

and it is inserted in the scene as a radio communica-

tion from the leader of the operators. For each micro-

task, the voice-over describes the necessary actions

to complete it, while the highlights point out all the

elements mentioned by the voice-over. If the trainee

successfully complete the micro-task, the voice-over

describes the next step and the procedure continues.

If the trainee fails (e.g., he or she makes a mistake),

the voice-over signals the error and describes a pos-

sible correction. At any moment, it is possible to re-

peat the last instruction described by the voice-over

by pressing a button on the hand controllers. The GM

ends when the trainee successfully complete the last

micro-task. Similarly to the original sandbox applica-

tion, it is possible to be guided through the whole pro-

HUCAPP 2022 - 6th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction Theory and Applications

276

cedure or through a subset of micro-tasks (e.g., only

the assembly of the delivery chain).

(a) (b)

Figure 3: Highlights and icons used in the GM to guide

the trainees in the HCP procedure. In (a), the blue and red

highlights point out the endpoints of a semi-rigid tube to

explain how to assemble the aspiration chain; in (b), the

highlights describe where to place the pump.

In the EM, there is no guiding system and the

trainee is free to interact with all the 3D objects. Mis-

takes are not signaled (the only feedback is the behav-

ior of the pump and the other objects in the scene), but

the trainee can undo the actions performed previously

and correct errors (if he or she notices them). An eval-

uation module keeps track of the trainee’s actions and

produces a report at the end of the simulation. This

report aims to highlight incorrect actions (e.g., “You

forgot to wear the PPE”) and give an overall evalua-

tion on the user’s performance. This training mode is

designed to be used multiple times to gradually im-

prove the user’s performance until no error is made.

4 EXPERIMENTS

In order to assess the overall quality of the developed

VRTS (learning effectiveness, potential as a learning

tool, usability, attractiveness), a user study was con-

ducted with 22 subjects from the Civil Protection of

Piedmont Region. The participants came from differ-

ent cities – therefore, from different Civil Protection

sites/units – and their knowledge of the HCP proce-

dure varied (some participants were unfamiliar with

the procedure, other claimed to have previous knowl-

edge on the topic). None of the subjects had previous

experience with immersive VR applications. The age

ranged from 30 to 73 years (µ = 55.38, σ = 9.69).

4.1 User Study

In the user study, the participants were asked to ﬁll in

a questionnaire and take a quiz on the HCP procedure

to collect background information and assess previ-

ous knowledge of the procedure. Afterwards, each

subject was asked to experience the VRTS in GM to

train in the HCP procedure, and was also offered the

possibility to use the EM to get a a feedback on the

performance (Fig. 4). All the experiments were con-

ducted using the single player version of the VRTS.

Finally, the subjects were asked to take the same quiz

used before the experience to assess the knowledge

gain associated with the use of the VRTS, as well as

to ﬁll in a second part of the questionnaire evaluating

the whole experience and collecting general feedback

and possible suggestions for future improvements.

(a) (b)

Figure 4: An operator from Civil Protection using the

VRTS. In (a), the operator is placing the pump; in (b), the

operator is assembling the aspiration chain.

The quiz used in this study consisted in a series of

multiple-choice questions and one open-ended ques-

tion. The multiple-choice questions concerned proce-

dural details like:

• where to place the pump;

• how to use the PPE;

• how to operate the pump’s valves;

• how to operate the pump during the pumping pro-

cedure;

• how to secure the operational ﬁeld;

• how to assemble the delivery and aspiration

chains.

The open-ended question, instead, concerned the

whole procedure and asked to brieﬂy describe the ﬁ-

nal goal of the HCP module.

The questionnaire administrated to the partici-

pants was composed of several sections to investigate

different aspect of the training experience and the de-

veloped VRTS. In particular:

• the ﬁrst section encompassed general questions

on the participant’s background (experience with

Civil Protection, with the HCP procedure, and

with immersive VR applications or video-games);

• the second section consisted of the Instructional

Materials Motivation Survey (Keller, 2010), or

IMMS. This section is composed of 36 statements

HCP–VR: Training First Responders through a Virtual Reality Application for Hydrogeological Risk Management

277

to be scored on a 1-to-5 scale (with one corre-

sponding to “not true” and ﬁve to “very true”) to

evaluate the participant’s motivations at learning

the HCP procedure. The statements considered

in this section can be grouped in four categories

(attention, conﬁdence, relevance, and satisfaction)

and their scores can be used to get an evaluation

for each category.

• the third section consisted of a subset of the At-

trakDiff questionnaire (Hassenzahl et al., 2008)

to evaluate the Attractiveness (ATT) and Hedo-

nic Quality Stimulation (HQ-S) of the experience

(Jost et al., 2020). In particular, this section eval-

uated the training experience using 14 pairs of

terms to which the participants were asked to as-

sign a value on a 1-to-7 scale.

• the fourth section aimed to evaluate the general

usability of the VRTS and was based on the Sys-

tem Usability Scale (SUS) (Brooke, 1996). It con-

sisted of 10 statements to be scored on a 1-to-5

scale (with one corresponding to “total disagree-

ment” and ﬁve to “total agreement”).

• ﬁnally, the ﬁfth section encompassed general

questions on the whole training experience, the

behavior of the NPCs, and the satisfaction and

conﬁdence of the participant.

4.2 Results

The collected results were used to evaluate the train-

ing experience. In particular, the questionnaire was

used to get a subjective estimation of the characteris-

tics of the training and the developed VRTS, whereas

the quiz session provided an objective evaluation of

the knowledge gain. There were no signiﬁcant differ-

ences between subjects with previous knowledge of

the HCP procedure and subjects with no experience

on the topic.

Starting with the subjective evaluation, the results

on motivations at learning (IMMS) are reported in

Fig. 5. As it can be seen, the training experience

managed to hold the trainees’ attention during the

study and was considered as satisfying. The partic-

ipants judged the experience as relevant, and consid-

ering the total score they were motivated to complete

the training. Looking at the individual answers of the

IMMS questionnaire, the attractiveness of the tackled

topic (the HCP procedure) and the quality of the in-

formation provided by the VRTS helped the trainees

to remain focused during the experience, hence the

high score assigned to the attention category. Regard-

ing the relevance category, its score can be linked

to the usefulness of the topic, together with the ﬁ-

delity of the simulation and the organization of vir-

tual training. Finally, considering the conﬁdence cat-

egory, even though the trainees were overall conﬁdent

about their knowledge at the end of the experience and

praised the organization of the provided content, they

pointed out that at, the beginning, they were unsure

about the effectiveness of a VR training, hence the

lower score.

Figure 5: Results collected through the IMMS question-

naire; the plot reports the results for each of the grouped

category (attention, satisfaction, relevance, conﬁdence, to-

tal) as well as the total score.

As for the results of the AttrakDiff questionnaire,

they are showed in Fig. 6. The training received

low scores for each pair of terms proposed by the

questionnaire, which means that the experience was

judged to be positive both in terms of attractive-

ness and hedonic quality stimulation. In particular,

it was praised for being innovative and for the nov-

elty of the chosen approach, whereas the higher score

assigned to the “bold/cautious” and the “challeng-

ing/undemanding” pairs are probably linked to the

fact that the structure of the training experience was

similar to that of “standard” (non-VR) HCP training.

Moreover, the developed VRTS was tested us-

ing the SUS questionnaire, and the results showed

that the usability was judged to be good (µ = 75.95,

σ = 12.96) overall. The participants praised the func-

tionality offered by the system, though some of them

weren’t sure if they could use the application without

a technician’s support (this outcome could be due by

the fact that the subjects had no previous experience

with VR applications or video-games).

Finally, regarding the objective evaluation, the re-

sults collected in the quiz session are given in Fig. 7.

The multiple-choice questions were marked on a 0-

to-6 scale, with one point assigned to each procedural

detail being investigated. Considering the score ob-

tained before and after the experience, a signiﬁcative

increment was observed (3.13 before vs 4.04 after,

p = 0.02), indicating a knowledge gain associated to

HUCAPP 2022 - 6th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction Theory and Applications

278

Figure 6: Results collected through the AttrakDiff question-

naire.

the training experience. The open-ended question was

not scored, but it was observed that after the training

the participants were able to describe the HCP pro-

cedure and the aim of the HCP module with higher

accuracy.

Figure 7: Results of the quiz session: the left column

refers to the questions administered before the training ex-

perience, whereas the right column summarizes the post-

experience ouctomes.

5 CONCLUSIONS

This paper presented a VRTS developed as a follow-

up to a previous study and designed as a tool for

training FRs in the HCP procedure. The applica-

tion was developed to overcome the limitations of the

standard training. In facts, VR technology can offer

detailed and accurate simulations of potentially life-

threatening scenarios where users can train without

incurring in actual risks. In particular, the developed

application simulated a scenario where FRs must act

in the event of an hydrogeological crisis: using a high-

capacity pump, the operators must drain a deluged

area while respecting all the safety regulations. The

VRTS offered two different training modes to train in

the procedure and assess the trainees’ knowledge.

To assess the VRTS, a user study was conducted.

Operators from Civil Protection were asked to expe-

rience the application, and questionnaires were used

together with theoretical quizzes to evaluate the over-

all quality and the efﬁcacy of the developed training

tool. The results showed that the participants appreci-

ated the training experience in terms of usability, at-

tractiveness and hedonic quality. They showed also

that the participants were able to maintain a high level

of attention, and that the learning experience was con-

sidered to be satisfying and relevant. Finally, the ob-

jective results collected with the quizzes showed a sig-

niﬁcative learning gain associated to the learning ex-

perience, regardless of trainees’ previous knowledge

on the subject matter (the HCP procedure).

The study also highlighted some limitations. In

particular, a participant pointed out the necessity to

use this VRTS as a complementary module to the

standard training (which is the currently intended

use), and not in substitution, citing the differences be-

tween the 3D objects and the real, heavy equipment

as one of the reasons. Other limitations concerned the

fact that, at this moment, it is possible to train in only

one virtual scenario, and the overall dullness of the

NPCs.

Possible future developments include overcoming

the above limitations. In particular, a possibility could

be to add different scenarios with different character-

istics (an urban one, or one with different height lev-

els) to the VRTS. Another extension could concern

improving the NPCs’ behavior by adding the possi-

bility to control them using the voice to enhance the

overall realism of the experience. Finally, a possible

extension to this study could consist in using the mul-

tiplayer mode to train operators and analyze the im-

pact of collaboration on the effectiveness of the train-

ing.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors want to thank Luca Cavallini, Nicol

Massobrio and Gisella Vignola for their contribution

to the development of the original VR scenario. They

also want to acknowledge the support provided by

the Civil Protection and Forest Fire Fighting Units of

Piedmont Region, Italy and the Piedmont Region Co-

ordination body of Civil Protection Volunteering g in

the design and validation phase. The activities de-

scribed in this paper were conducted in the context

of the PITEM RISK project and fall within the scope

HCP–VR: Training First Responders through a Virtual Reality Application for Hydrogeological Risk Management

279

of the Interreg V-A Francia-Italia ALCOTRA PITEM

RISK ACT (4980) sub-project.

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