Risk Assessment Techniques for Civil Aviation Security

Following the 9/11 terrorists attacks a strong economical effort was made to improve and adapt aviation security, both in infrastructures as in airplanes. National and international guidelines were promptly developed with the objective of creating a security management system able to supervise the identification of risks and the definition and optimisation of control measures. Risk assessment techniques are thus crucial in the above process, since an incorrect risk identification and quantification can strongly affect both the security level as the investments needed to reach it. The paper proposes a set of methodologies to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the risk in the security of civil aviation and the risk assessment process based on the threats, criticality and vulnerabilities concepts, highlighting their correlation in determining the level of risk. RAMS techniques are applied to the airport security system in order to analyse the protection equipment for critical facilities located in air-side, allowing also the estimation of the importance of the security improving measures vs. their effectiveness

Risk based passenger screening in aviation security: implications and variants of a new paradigm.

In “Risk Based Passenger Screening in Aviation Security: Implications and Variants of a New Paradigm”, Sebastian Weydner-Volkmann describes the current paradigm shift from ‘traditional’ forms of screening to ‘risk based passenger screening’ (RBS) in aviation security. This paradigm shift is put in the context of the wider historical development of risk management approaches. Through a discussion of Michel Foucault, Herfried Münkler and Ulrich Beck, Weydner-Volkmann analyses the shortcomings of such approaches in public security policies, which become especially evident in the aviation security context. As he shows, the turn towards methods of RBS can be seen as an attempt to address a trade-off ‘trilemma’ between the effective provision of security, the implied costs for industry and passengers, and the ethical, legal and societal implications of the screening procedures. In order to analyse foreseeable outcomes of embracing RBS, he differentiates three prototypical variants of the new paradigm on the basis of their main referent and rationale. For each variant, he then subsequently assesses the implications for the ‘trilemma’, after having unveiled the criteria of analysis that will necessarily have to be followed within a serious appraisal of RBS methods

Risk analysis in biometric-based Border Inspection System

The main goal of a Border Inspection System is to prevent the entry of individuals who pose a threat to a country. The entry of just one of these persons could have severe consequences. Nevertheless, performing a lengthy border inspection is not possible, given that 240,737 international passengers enter the country in an average day [5]. For this reason, the primary inspection is performed using biometrics traits and information flow processes that have a low false acceptance rate and have a high throughput.;This thesis uses the analytic modeling tool called LQNS (Layered Queueing Network Solver) to solve open models for biometric-based border inspection system and cost curves to evaluate the risk. The contributions of the thesis include a performance model of a biometric-based border inspection using open workloads and a risk model of a biometric-based border inspection using cost curves. Further, we propose an original methodology for analyzing a combination of performance risk and security risk in the border inspection system

A Step toward Ending Long Airport Security Lines: The Modified Boarding Pass

Anyone who has traveled by air has most likely experienced long airport security lines. Yet not much is known about its cause because few have considered if passengers have created this problem for themselves. The present study attempts to fill this research gap by suggesting that when passengers are not well-prepared for security screening, they delay the process by making mistakes and not complying with procedures. This lack of preparedness can be attributed to several shortcomings of security signposts. This study proposes the use of a modified boarding pass as an alternative form of signage to help passengers better prepare for security screening. In a recall evaluation of the items to remove prior to security screening, the combination of the modified boarding pass and security signposts led to greater recall than when either stimuli were used alone. In an airport survey to gather public sentiment, three-quarters of the respondents saw value in the idea of the modified boarding pass. Although the majority of the respondents were receptive to it becoming an option for future travel, many also felt that the modified boarding pass would be more useful than security signposts or announcements at conveying helpful security screening information

Disaster management from a POM perspective : mapping a new domain

We have reviewed disaster management research papers published in major operations management, management science, operations research, supply chain management and transportation/ logistics journals. In reviewing these papers our objective is to assess and present the macro level “architectural blue print” of disaster management research with the hope that it will attract new researchers and motivate established researchers to contribute to this important field. The secondary objective is to bring this disaster research to the attention of disaster administrators so that disasters are managed more efficiently and more effectively. We have mapped the disaster management research on the following five attributes of a disaster: (1) Disaster Management Function (decision making process, prevention and mitigation, evacuation, humanitarian logistics, casualty management, and recovery and restoration), (2) Time of Disaster (before, during and after), (3) Type of Disaster (accidents, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, landslides, terrorism and wildfires etc.), (4) Data Type (Field and Archival data, Real data and Hypothetical data), and (5) Data Analysis Technique (bidding models, decision analysis, expert systems, fuzzy system analysis, game theory, heuristics, mathematical programming, network flow models, queuing theory, simulation and statistical analysis). We have done cross tabulations of data among these five parameters to gain greater insights in disaster research. Recommendations for future research are provided

Prevention of terrorism : an assessment of prior POM work and future potentials

© 2020 Production and Operations Management Society In this study, we review POM-based research related to prevention of terrorism. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) terrorist attacks have the potential to be prevented. Consequently, the focus of this study is on security enhancement and improving the resiliency of a nation to prevent terrorist attacks. Accordingly, we review articles from the 25 top journals, [following procedures developed by Gupta et al. (2016)], in the fields of Production and Operations Management, Operations Research, Management Science, and Supply Chain Management. In addition, we searched some selected journals in the fields of Information Sciences, Political Science, and Economics. This literature is organized and reviewed under the following seven core capabilities defined by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS): (1) Intelligence and Information Sharing, (2) Planning, (3) Interdiction and Disruption, (4) Screening, Search, and Detection, (5) Forensics and Attribution, (6) Public Information and Warning, and (7) Operational Coordination. We found that POM research on terrorism is primarily driven by the type of information that a defending country and a terrorist have about each other. Game theory is the main technique that is used in most research papers. Possible directions for future research are discussed

Contribution à la Gestion des Opérations de la Sûreté Aéroportuaire : Modélisation et Optimisation

L'objectif principal de cette thèse consiste à apporter une contribution méthodologique à la gestion de la sûreté et de coût de la sûreté aéroportuaire. Nous avons proposé un modèle logique du système de contrôle du flux des passagers au départ dans un aéroport. La finalité de ce modèle a permis de tester différents scénarios d'attaque du système, d'analyser le comportement du système dans ces conditions et d'en évaluer la perméabilité. Nous nous sommes ensuite intéressé à l'évaluation du système de contrôle des flux de passagers à l'embarquement au travers d'une approche probabiliste. Ceci conduit à la formulation de problèmes d'optimisation permettant d'améliorer les performances du système de contrôle. Afin d'obtenir la modélisation mathématique des flux de passagers au départ dans une aérogare, nous avons introduit les facteurs temps et espace par rapport au modèle précédent afin de le rendre plus proche de l'opérationnel. Enfin, nous nous sommes intéressés à l'optimisation des affectations des ressources matérielles et humaines destinées au contrôle du trafic de passagers. Le modèle spatio-temporel développé précédemment est mis à profit pour quantifier de façon dynamique, l'attribution des ressources matérielles et humaines au niveau de l'inspection filtrage et surtout d'améliorer la qualité de service. Beaucoup reste à faire dans ce domaine et le développement d'outils de modélisation, d'analyse et d'aide à la décision tels que ceux qui ont été esquissés dans ce mémoire semble s'imposer pour assurer l'optimisation de l'affectation des ressources de la sûreté aéroportuaire et ainsi garantir non seulement la qualité du service de contrôle mais aussi le niveau de coûts en résultant. ABSTRACT : Since the tragic events of September 11, aviation security is jeopardized. Many measures were taken both from the standpoint of improved procedures for improving the performance of security officers and equipment safety. Despite the implementation of new procedures and new measures, many events have shaken the airport security system established by ICAO, these include, the latest of which is the attempt acts of unlawful interference in December 2009. The main objective of this thesis is to contribute to methodological constraints security management and cost of airport security. To fight effectively against illegal acts, the standard 4.4.1 of Schedule 17 to the Chicago Convention states: “Each Contracting State shall establish measures to ensure that passengers from flights of commercial air transport and their cabin baggage are subjected to screened before boarding an aircraft departing from an area of security restricted”. The security check is then one of the highlights of airport security. We therefore propose a model system logic to control the flow of departing passengers at an airport. The purpose of this model was used to test different scenarios of attack system, analyze system behavior under these conditions and to assess permeability. We are then interested in evaluating the system of controlling the flow of passengers boarding through a probabilistic approach. This then leads to the formulation of optimization problems to improve the performance of the control system. It is then possible to establish operational procedures leading to improved system performance of passenger screening. To obtain the mathematical modeling of flow of departing passengers in a terminal, we introduced the factors of time and space relative to the previous model to make it closer to the operational. In this model, which adopts a network structure to describe the process and the transfer of passengers between the terminal sites, in particular allows to represent queues and waiting times inflicted on passengers. Finally, we are interested in optimizing the allocation of human and material resources for the control of passenger traffic. The spatio-temporal model developed previously is used to quantify dynamically allocating human and material resources at the security check and especially to improve the quality of service. This optimization allows us to formulate effective policies to manage the short term. Finally, modeling the performance of safety was performed according to a probabilistic point of view and then a dynamic perspective and space. In both cases the optimization problems were formulated based on the determination of operational parameters to improve system performance. Much remains to be done in this area and the development of tools for modeling, analysis and decision support such as those outlined in this paper seems to be necessary to ensure optimal allocation resources for airport security and so ensure not only quality service but also control the level of the resulting costs

Resource allocation optimization problems in the public sector

This dissertation consists of three distinct, although conceptually related, public sector topics: the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and the Georgia Trauma Care Network Commission (GTCNC). The topics are unified in their mathematical modeling and mixed-integer programming solution strategies. In Chapter 2, we discuss strategies for solving large-scale integer programs to include column generation and the known heuristic of particle swarm optimization (PSO). In order to solve problems with an exponential number of decision variables, we employ Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition to take advantage of the special subproblem structures encountered in resource allocation problems. In each of the resource allocation problems presented, we concentrate on selecting an optimal portfolio of improvement measures. In most cases, the number of potential portfolios of investment is too large to be expressed explicitly or stored on a computer. We use column generation to effectively solve these problems to optimality, but are hindered by the solution time and large CPU requirement. We explore utilizing multi-swarm particle swarm optimization to solve the decomposition heuristically. We also explore integrating multi-swarm PSO into the column generation framework to solve the pricing problem for entering columns of negative reduced cost. In Chapter 3, we present a TSA problem to allocate security measures across all federally funded airports nationwide. This project establishes a quantitative construct for enterprise risk assessment and optimal resource allocation to achieve the best aviation security. We first analyze and model the various aviation transportation risks and establish their interdependencies. The mixed-integer program determines how best to invest any additional security measures for the best overall risk protection and return on investment. Our analysis involves cascading and inter-dependency modeling of the multi-tier risk taxonomy and overlaying security measurements. The model selects optimal security measure allocations for each airport with the objectives to minimize the probability of false clears, maximize the probability of threat detection, and maximize the risk posture (ability to mitigate risks) in aviation security. The risk assessment and optimal resource allocation construct are generalizable and are applied to the CBP problem. In Chapter 4, we optimize security measure investments to achieve the most cost-effective deterrence and detection capabilities for the CBP. A large-scale resource allocation integer program was successfully modeled that rapidly returns good Pareto optimal results. The model incorporates the utility of each measure, the probability of success, along with multiple objectives. To the best of our knowledge, our work presents the first mathematical model that optimizes security strategies for the CBP and is the first to introduce a utility factor to emphasize deterrence and detection impact. The model accommodates different resources, constraints, and various types of objectives. In Chapter 5, we analyze the emergency trauma network problem first by simulation. The simulation offers a framework of resource allocation for trauma systems and possible ways to evaluate the impact of the investments on the overall performance of the trauma system. The simulation works as an effective proof of concept to demonstrate that improvements to patient well-being can be measured and that alternative solutions can be analyzed. We then explore three different formulations to model the Emergency Trauma Network as a mixed-integer programming model. The first model is a Multi-Region, Multi-Depot, Multi-Trip Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows. This is a known expansion of the vehicle routing problem that has been extended to model the Georgia trauma network. We then adapt an Ambulance Routing Problem (ARP) to the previously mentioned VRP. There are no known ARPs of this magnitude/extension of a VRP. One of the primary differences is many ARPs are constructed for disaster scenarios versus day-to-day emergency trauma operations. The new ARP also implements more constraints based on trauma level limitations for patients and hospitals. Lastly, the Resource Allocation ARP is constructed to reflect the investment decisions presented in the simulation.Ph.D