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Both parties were excited by this challenge – the Port of Montreal would get a superior product than they had originally anticipated, while Prevu3D got the chance to tackle a challenging project larger than any they had done to date. But the project got even more exciting: Dany Rochond, Deputy Harbour Master, Fire and Hazardous Materials at Port of Montreal, had an idea when speaking with Mr. Olivier about the digital twin of their facilities. What if it could be used as a setting for digital fire and safety training? This simple idea made radical sense, as Prevu3D’s expertise in interactive 3D solutions could now be used in a new setting with significant benefits for the Port of Montreal.

After lots of planning and the help of ARA Robotics, the project got underway. Over the next few months, the team from ARA Robotics captured hundreds of thousands of images of the port that would later be processed into high-quality 3D models. Leveraging the Prevu3D platform, new functionalities based on the request of the fire safety department were designed and added. Working closely with the Port’s team, Prevu3D developed a tailored solution that became the Fire & Safety department’s innovative new training tool.

The results

The Port of Montreal prides itself on how secure and efficient they are at preventing and managing crises. Because of this success, there hasn’t been a lot of real life-threatening or dangerous events in the past few years. Without actual emergencies to build their experience fire and safety officers had to rely on a standard lecture-style training through Power-Point presentations in order to practice and review emergency response scenarios. With the help of their new simulator, trainers can now create various scenarios, anywhere within the 26-kilometre area of the port, to rehearse potential emergencies and to review the trainees’ responses to them. Variables controllable within the simulator, such as meteorological factors, affect the participant’s choices within the simulator and thus their evaluation. Plus, participants in fire and safety training can now continue to improve their readiness from home, which they could never do before.

Most emergency responses rely on effective communication between multiple participants, and their new simulator allows the Port of Montreal fire and safety workers to train under a more realistic representation of the risk factors involved in a given scenario.