Transportation, Terrorism and Crime: Deterrence, Disruption and Resilience

Abstract: Terrorists likely have adopted vehicle ramming as a tactic because it can be carried out by an individual (or “lone wolf terrorist”), and because the skills required are minimal (e.g. the ability to drive a car and determine locations for creating maximum carnage). Studies of terrorist activities against transportation assets have been conducted to help law enforcement agencies prepare their communities, create mitigation measures, conduct effective surveillance and respond quickly to attacks. This study reviews current research on terrorist tactics against transportation assets, with an emphasis on vehicle ramming attacks. It evaluates some of the current attack strategies, and the possible mitigation or response tactics that may be effective in deterring attacks or saving lives in the event of an attack. It includes case studies that can be used as educational tools for understanding terrorist methodologies, as well as ordinary emergencies that might become a terrorist’s blueprint

Water and Wastewater Pipe Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring: A Review

Civil infrastructures such as bridges, buildings, and pipelines ensure society's economic and industrial prosperity. Specifically, pipe networks assure the transportation of primary commodities such as water, oil, and natural gas. The quantitative and early detection of defects in pipes is critical in order to avoid severe consequences. As a result of high-profile accidents and economic downturn, research and development in the area of pipeline inspection has focused mainly on gas and oil pipelines. Due to the low cost of water, the development of nondestructive inspection (NDI) and structural health monitoring (SHM) technologies for fresh water mains and sewers has received the least attention. Moreover, the technical challenges associated with the practical deployment of monitoring system demand synergistic interaction across several disciplines, which may limit the transition from laboratory to real structures. This paper presents an overview of the most used NDI/SHM technologies for freshwater pipes and sewers. The challenges that said infrastructures pose with respect to oil and natural gas pipeline networks will be discussed. Finally, the methodologies that can be translated into SHM approaches are highlighted

Security and the smart city: A systematic review

The implementation of smart technology in cities is often hailed as the solution to many urban challenges such as transportation, waste management, and environmental protection. Issues of security and crime prevention, however, are in many cases neglected. Moreover, when researchers do introduce new smart security technologies, they rarely discuss their implementation or question how new smart city security might affect traditional policing and urban planning processes. This systematic review explores the recent literature concerned with new ‘smart city’ security technologies and aims to investigate to what extent these new interventions correspond with traditional functions of security interventions. Through an extensive literature search we compiled a list of security interventions for smart cities and suggest several changes to the conceptual status quo in the field. Ultimately, we propose three clear categories to categorise security interventions in smart cities: Those interventions that use new sensors but traditional actuators, those that seek to make old systems smart, and those that introduce entirely new functions. These themes are then discussed in detail and the importance of each group of interventions for the overall field of urban security and governance is assessed

To CCTV or not? An Examination of Community-based CCTV in Ireland

Over the last twenty years, there has been a significant increase in the use of closed circuit television (CCTV) systems. Most people are familiar with the use of such systems in locations such as shops, financial institutions, hotels, schools, hospitals, sports stadia and so forth. However, there are also a significant number of public CCTV systems that have been erected and operate in public space areas such as town centres, residential housing estates etc. Some of these CCTV systems are police only or local authority only systems but a growing number are what is termed community-based systems. The principal aim of this study is to explore the development and use of these community-based CCTV systems with the objectives of investigating societal attitudes and perceptions to CCTV in the community, exploring implications for civil liberties and privacy issues and an examination of the evaluation processes to assess the impact of the systems. The researcher adopted a mixed methods approach of both qualitative and quantitative research for this project. For the qualitative aspect, the method of sampling was purposive with eight persons selected for interview on the basis of their knowledge and experience of community-based CCTV systems. For the quantitative aspect, probability sampling was used with members of the general public randomly selected for face-to-face surveys utilising questionnaires. Recorded crime figures were also examined at each location. The results show that, despite a lack of empirical evidence as to their value in preventing or reducing crime, there is strong public support for these systems and that the foundation for much of this support lies in greater feelings of safety generated in areas with CCTV coverage. The results further show that there is a deficit of ongoing evaluation. The researcher recommends that all systems currently in operation should be evaluated on a continuing basis and that these evaluations should include comprehensive crime figure analysis including crime displacement, opinions and attitudes of the local community, technical specifications and operational requirements of the CCTV system. The researcher also recommends that the community become more knowledgeable of the systems and that the presence of CCTV cameras in the area be frequently highlighted and publicised to inform the public and act as a deterrent

A deep learning approach towards railway safety risk assessment

Railway stations are essential aspects of railway systems, and they play a vital role in public daily life. Various types of AI technology have been utilised in many fields to ensure the safety of people and their assets. In this paper, we propose a novel framework that uses computer vision and pattern recognition to perform risk management in railway systems in which a convolutional neural network (CNN) is applied as a supervised machine learning model to identify risks. However, risk management in railway stations is challenging because stations feature dynamic and complex conditions. Despite extensive efforts by industry associations and researchers to reduce the number of accidents and injuries in this field, such incidents still occur. The proposed model offers a beneficial method for obtaining more accurate motion data, and it detects adverse conditions as soon as possible by capturing fall, slip and trip (FST) events in the stations that represent high-risk outcomes. The framework of the presented method is generalisable to a wide range of locations and to additional types of risks

Surveillance : an investigation into individual reactions to the capture and recording of personal images through interpretation of the moment

This research project explores surveillance and how individuals react to its presence. This is achieved through research into the development of surveillance, exploring early techniques such as espionage as discussed by Crowdy, (2006), and Bentham’s Panopticon. There is a focus on how early examples of surveillance evolved into and influenced techniques and technologies in use today. Further investigation into privacy takes place and its relationship with modern surveillance is explored.In order to achieve the research goal, that is, an investigation into how targeted subjects react to being surveilled, research and critical analysis into surveillance art and installations was completed and used to aid in the design of a practical investigation. In addition, the practical element of the study provided the opportunity for participants to complete questionnaires, thus enabling analysis of responses that demonstrate their understanding and views on surveillance:Collected images and data were analyzed in order to address the research question: Can we, through a surveillance piece, obtain a critical response to individual reactions to ‘being viewed’? Additional work involved investigating if a pre-held conception had any link to the outcome of the practical research.The captured images and interpretation of those images proved successful, but this process is interpretive and in no way conclusive. Bearing in mind the subjectivity of any analysis, there is some indication that the practical experience has an impact on the expressed views of participants

Getting smarter about smart cities: Improving data privacy and data security

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Effective design, configuration, and use of digital CCTV

It is estimated that there are five million CCTV cameras in use today. CCTV is used by a wide range of organisations and for an increasing number of purposes. Despite this, there has been little research to establish whether these systems are fit for purpose. This thesis takes a socio-technical approach to determine whether CCTV is effective, and if not, how it could be made more effective. Humancomputer interaction (HCI) knowledge and methods have been applied to improve this understanding and what is needed to make CCTV effective; this was achieved in an extensive field study and two experiments. In Study 1, contextual inquiry was used to identify the security goals, tasks, technology and factors which affected operator performance and the causes at 14 security control rooms. The findings revealed a number of factors which interfered with task performance, such as: poor camera positioning, ineffective workstation setups, difficulty in locating scenes, and the use of low-quality CCTV recordings. The impact of different levels of video quality on identification and detection performance was assessed in two experiments using a task-focused methodology. In Study 2, 80 participants identified 64 face images taken from four spatially compressed video conditions (32, 52, 72, and 92 Kbps). At a bit rate quality of 52 Kbps (MPEG-4), the number of faces correctly identified reached significance. In Study 3, 80 participants each detected 32 events from four frame rate CCTV video conditions (1, 5, 8, and 12 fps). Below 8 frames per second, correct detections and task confidence ratings decreased significantly. These field and empirical research findings are presented in a framework using a typical CCTV deployment scenario, which has been validated through an expert review. The contributions and limitations of this thesis are reviewed, and suggestions for how the framework should be further developed are provided