A Simulation-Based Study on Securing Data Sharing for Situational Awareness in a Port Accident Case

The cyber–physical systems (CPSs) of various stakeholders from the mobility, logistics, and security sectors are needed to enable smart and secure situational awareness operations in a port environment. The motivation for this research arises from the challenges caused by some unexpected events, such as accidents, in such a multi-stakeholder critical environment. Due to the scale, complexity, and cost and safety challenges, a simulation-based approach was selected as the basis for the study. Prototype-level experimental solutions for dataspaces for secure data sharing and visualization of situational awareness were developed. The secure data-sharing solution relies on the application of verifiable credentials (VCs) to ensure that data consumers have the required access rights to the data/information shared by the data prosumer. A 3D virtual digital twin model is applied for visualizing situational awareness for people in the port. The solutions were evaluated in a simulation-based execution of an accident scenario where a forklift catches fire while loading a docked ship in a port environment. The simulation-based approach and the provided solutions proved to be practical and enabled the smooth study of disaster-type situations. The realized concept of dataspaces is successfully applied here for both daily routine operations and information sharing during accidents in the simulation-based environment. During the evaluation, needs for future research related to perception, comprehension, projection, trust, and security as well as performance and quality of experience were detected. Especially, distributed and secure viewpoints of objects and stakeholders toward real-time situational awareness seem to require further studies.