Catastrophe modeler RMS giving cities free access to technology

RMS said San Francisco will be the first city in the 100 Resilient Cities program to have free access to its models and technology.

Catastrophe modeling firm Risk Management Solutions Inc. announced Tuesday a partnership intended to help cities address natural hazard risk.

RMS said it would grant access to its RMS(one) exposure and risk management platform and catastrophe models to 100 Resilient Cities — Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to helping cities around the world become more resilient.

“By providing our models and technology to cities in the 100 Resilient Cities program, we can help them better understand their catastrophe risk and increase their resilience,” Paul VanderMarck, chief products officer at RMS said in a statement.

RMS said San Francisco will be the first city in the 100 Resilient Cities program to have free access to its models and technology.

“In San Francisco, we have already made a significant investment in modeling expected losses from future earthquake scenarios, which has informed multiple public policy decisions,” Patrick Otellini, chief resilience officer for San Francisco said in a statement. “RMS’s science and technology will enable us to use modeling more dynamically to improve our understanding of risk, to analyze the benefits of potential mitigation investments and to respond effectively to actual events.”

In June, RMS announced a public-private partnership with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction that will enable government officials around the world free access to its catastrophe models and RMS(one) platform.