Search and Rescue teams from Apache County and wider Arizona use Win C.A.S.I.E, standing for Computer Aided Search Information Exchange. It is a piece of software developed in part by John Bownds of the University of Arizona.
It provides a series of questions to be asked at the beginning of a search and rescue mission, models the movement of lost persons and combines this person model and the initial questions with information about the terrain, climate, resources and timeframe to recomend search patterns and give probabilities of finding the person in a certain area.
In addition to this, it complements paper maps and planning processes by providing an interface to generate an audit trail of decision and justifications throughout the process. According to the sheriffs this is actually used in real time as a search progresses, which is one of the best tests of a tool’s utility.
Link: http://www.wcasie.com/index.html