Speed, slope, and synchrony: Empirical insights into SAR searcher behavior

Amanda Hashimoto, Eighdi Aung, Robert Koester and Nicole Abaid

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 6, 1-20

Abstract: Wilderness search and rescue (SAR) missions are time-critical and terrain-dependent, so planners must quickly allocate resources across complex landscapes. In practice, they rely on expert judgment and experience-based assumptions to coordinate individuals and teams, yet few of these assumptions have been formally validated with field data and modeling. We address this gap by analyzing GPS tracks from 64 SAR incidents, selecting 61 tracks from 13 cases. The tracks are categorized by search tactic: hasty, sweep, or team sweep, with the last divided into six teams of varying size. To quantify how tactic and terrain shape movement, we bootstrapped exponential speed-slope fits, ran Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests, and used a nested ANOVA with random effects. Median uphill and downhill speeds are statistically indistinguishable (0.48 m/s vs. 0.52 m/s; KS p = 0.093), suggesting that slope penalties on pedestrian speed can be modeled symmetrically. Hasty searches are faster than sweeps (0.53 m/s vs. 0.39 m/s; KS p

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0339541

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0339541

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