A Risk-Based Optimization Framework for Security Systems Upgrades at Airports

Airports are fast-growing dynamic infrastructure assets. For example, the Canadian airport industry is growing by 5% annually and generates about $8 billion yearly. Since the 9/11 tragedy, airport security has been of paramount importance both in Canada and worldwide. Consequently, in 2002, in the wake of the attacks, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) put into force revised aviation security standards and recommended practices, and began a Universal Security Audit Program (USAP), in order to insure the worldwide safeguarding of civil aviation in general, and of airports in particular, against unlawful interference. To improve aviation security at both the national level and for individual airport, airport authorities in North America have initiated extensive programs to help quantify, detect, deter, and mitigate security risk. At the research level, a number of studies have examined scenarios involving threats to airports, the factors that contribute to airport vulnerability, and decision support systems for security management. However, more work is still required in the area of developing decision support tools that can assist airport officials in meeting the challenges associated with decision about upgrades; determining the status of their security systems and efficiently allocating financial resources to improve them to the level required. To help airport authorities make cost-effective decisions about airport security upgrades, this research has developed a risk-based optimization framework. The framework assists airport officials in quantitatively assessing the status of threats to their airports, the vulnerability to their security systems, and the consequences of security breaches. A key element of this framework is a new quantitative security metric ; the aim of which is to assist airport authorities self-assess the condition of their security systems, and to produce security risk indices that decision makers can use as prioritizing criteria and constraints when meeting decisions about security upgrades. These indices have been utilized to formulate an automated decision support system for upgrading security systems in airports. Because they represent one of the most important security systems in an airport, the research focuses on passenger and cabin baggage screening systems. Based on an analysis of the related threats, vulnerabilities and consequences throughout the flow of passengers, cabin baggage, and checked-in luggage, the proposed framework incorporates an optimization model for determining the most cost-effective countermeasures that can minimize security risks. For this purpose, the framework first calculates the level of possible improvement in security using a new risk metric. Among the important features of the framework is the fact that it allows airport officials to perform multiple “what-if” scenarios, to consider the limitations of security upgrade budgets, and to incorporate airport-specific requirements. Based on the received positive feedback from two actual airports, the framework can be extended to include other facets of security in airports, and to form a comprehensive asset management system for upgrading security at both single and multiple airports. From a broader perspective, this research contributes to the improvement of security in a major transportation sector that has an enormous impact on economic growth and on the welfare of regional, national and international societies

Contribution to the evaluation and optimization of passengers' screening at airports

Security threats have emerged in the past decades as a more and more critical issue for Air Transportation which has been one of the main ressource for globalization of economy. Reinforced control measures based on pluridisciplinary research and new technologies have been implemented at airports as a reaction to different terrorist attacks. From the scientific perspective, the efficient screening of passengers at airports remain a challenge and the main objective of this thesis is to open new lines of research in this field by developing advanced approaches using the resources of Computer Science. First this thesis introduces the main concepts and definitions of airport security and gives an overview of the passenger terminal control systems and more specifically the screening inspection positions are identified and described. A logical model of the departure control system for passengers at an airport is proposed. This model is transcribed into a graphical view (Controlled Satisfiability Graph-CSG) which allows to test the screening system with different attack scenarios. Then a probabilistic approach for the evaluation of the control system of passenger flows at departure is developped leading to the introduction of Bayesian Colored Petri nets (BCPN). Finally an optimization approach is adopted to organize the flow of passengers at departure as best as possible given the probabilistic performance of the elements composing the control system. After the establishment of a global evaluation model based on an undifferentiated serial processing of passengers, is analyzed a two-stage control structure which highlights the interest of pre-filtering and organizing the passengers into separate groups. The conclusion of this study points out for the continuation of this theme

Operating characteristics of passenger screening processes and the development of a paced inspection system

The airport checkpoint security screening (ACSS) system is an important line of defense against the introduction of dangerous objects into the U.S. aviation system. Recently, there has been much interest in modeling these systems and to derive operating parameters which optimize performance. In general there are two performance measures of interest (i) the waiting time of the arriving entities, and (ii) the allocated screening resources and its utilization. Clearly, the traveling public would like a zero waiting time, while airports are limited both in terms of space and resource capital. The arrival and exit entity in the ACSS system are passengers. On arrival, passengers split into two sub- entities (i) bags or other carry-on items and (ii) passenger body and the two must rejoin prior to exit. There is a 1:M ratio between passengers and carry-on items with M\u3e0. The existing knowledge base related to the operating characteristics of ACSS processes is very limited. Almost all screening systems have a human interpretive component, as a result the screening behavior is highly variant and difficult to predict. This dissertation studies the operating characteristics of the security screening process to develop proven relationships between inspection times and clearance rates. A descriptive model of the screening system, which identifies the design variables, operational parameters and performance measures, is defined. Screening data was collected from 18 U.S. airports (10 high volume, 5 medium volume, and 3 low volume). The data sets captured (i) passenger arrival times, (ii) X-ray inspection times, (iii) clearance decision, (iv) passenger physical inspection times, and (v) secondary carry-on item inspection times. An empirical analysis was used to generate a speed of inspection operating characteristic (SIOC) curve for each of the inspection processes. Mean inspection times are found to be much larger than what is frequently assumed in the literature. The findings showed that the inspection rate increases linearly with inspection time until the 7 second point, after which it describes a negative growth. The behavior of these relationships under different operating conditions was studied using a set of hypothesis. These include performance differences between airport types, between checkpoints within an airport, as well as the effect of increased passenger arrival rates. Reliable data describing the operating characteristics of security inspection processes are now available. This data can be used to design and analyze ACSS systems with much greater accuracy and detail. The results will in effect reduce the dependence on trial-and-error experiments at the site. A greater understanding of the statistical behavior of the inspection process is known and validated. The SIOC curves provide a standard against which new and alternative ACSS designs can be evaluated and benchmarked. Paced ACSS systems are demonstrated as a viable alternative with potentially higher performance

Simulation Modeling Approach for Evaluating a Solution Designed to Alleviate the Congestion of Passenger Flow at the Composure Area of Security Checkpoints

In a previous study, we found that replacing the exit roller of a security checkpoint lane for a continuously circulating conveyor could potentially increase the throughput of passengers by over 28% while maintaining the TSA security-waiting time limit (Janer and Rossetti 2016). This study intends to expand this previous effort by investigating the impact of this circulating conveyor on the secondary screening related processes. Leone and Liu (2011) found that imposing a limit on the x-ray screening time, and diverting any item exceeding this limit to secondary screening, could decrease the waiting time by 43%. Our objective is to verify Leone and Lui’s findings using discrete event simulation, and evaluate the effect of a circulating conveyor on these findings. In particular, we intend to optimize univariate response curves of the same response variable in Leone and Liu’s effort. Simulation will be used to evaluate the optimal solution, and investigate the possibility of replacing a traditional two-lane system with a single lane having the circulating conveyor in place

Analysis of Airport Security Screening Checkpoints using Queuing Networks and Discrete Event Simulation: A Theoretical and Empirical Approach

This study utilized discrete event simulation (DES) and queuing networks to investigate the effects of baggage volume and alarm rate at the Security Screening Checkpoint (SSCP) of a small origin and destination airport. A Jackson queuing network was considered for a theoretical assessment to SSCP performance. A DES model using Arena version 12 was utilized for an empirical approach. Data was collected from both literature and by manual collection methods. Manual data was collected during the peak operating time of 6am-7am local time at the airport being modeled. The simulation model was verified and validated qualitatively and quantitatively by statistical testing before experimentation. After validation, a sensitivity analysis was performed on baggage volume of passengers (PAX) and the alarm rate of baggage screening devices, where SSCP throughput and PAX cycle time were the dependent measures. The theoretical queuing network approach proved an accurate method of predicting cycle time, but only under limited steady-state conditions. The empirical model and sensitivity analysis showed that SSCP performance is highly sensitive to alarm rate in both throughput and cycle time. Furthermore, empirical modeling and sensitivity analysis showed that SSCP performance was moderately sensitive to alarm rate, and completely resilient to the effects of baggage volume. Practical implications and future directions were also discussed at the conclusion of the study

GLOBOIDS for a Seamless Cross Border Mobility Experience

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought the global border management issue to the surface. Policymakers are deliberating on mitigating the situation by employing measures for immediate resolution and are working on future sustainability. The purpose of this research is to address the scale, scope, and complexity of border governance that not only entails minimal human intervention but also global collaborative action. A design science research methodology was utilized to design the proposed artefacts, to enable a high-level understanding of the global border affairs, and to introduce a potential solution for deliberation, discussion, and future digital. A global border management intelligent distributed system has been conceptualized to be contactless and concerted. It also envisions improving efficiency, performance, and seamless and secure cross-border mobility in the post-pandemic new normal

The price of usability: Designing operationalizable strategies for security games

We consider the problem of allocating scarce security resources among heterogeneous targets to thwart a possible attack. It is well known that deterministic solutions to this problem being highly predictable are severely suboptimal. To mitigate this predictability, the game-theoretic security game model was proposed which randomizes over pure (deterministic) strategies, causing confusion in the adversary. Unfortunately, such mixed strategies typically randomize over a large number of strategies, requiring security personnel to be familiar with numerous protocols, making them hard to operationalize. Motivated by these practical considerations, we propose an easy to use approach for computing strategies that are easy to operationalize and that bridge the gap between the static solution and the optimal mixed strategy. These strategies only randomize over an optimally chosen subset of pure strategies whose cardinality is selected by the defender, enabling them to conveniently tune the trade-off between ease of operationalization and efficiency using a single design parameter. We show that the problem of computing such operationalizable strategies is NP-hard, formulate it as a mixed-integer optimization problem, provide an algorithm for computing ϵ-optimal equilibria, and an efficient heuristic. We evaluate the performance of our approach on the problem of screening for threats at airport checkpoints and show that the Price of Us-ability, i.e., the loss in optimality to obtain a strategy that is easier to operationalize, is typically not high

BIM and its impact upon project success outcomes from a Facilities Management perspective

The uptake of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been increasing, but some of its promoted potential benefits have been slow to materialise. In particular, claims that BIM will revolutionise facilities management (FM) creating efficiencies in the whole-life of building operations have yet to be achieved on a wide scale, certainly in comparison to tangible progress made for the prior design and construction phases. To attempt to unravel the factors at play in the adoption of BIM during the operational phase, and in particular, understand if adoption by facilities managers (FMs) is lagging behind other disciplines, this study aims to understand if current BIM processes can ease the challenges in this area faced by facilities management project stakeholders. To do this, success from a facilities management viewpoint is considered and barriers to facilities management success are explored, with focused BIM use proposed as a solution to these barriers. Qualitative research was undertaken, using semi structured interviews to collect data from a non-probability sample of 7 project- and facilities- management practitioners. Key results from this study show that the main barrier to BIM adoption by facilities managers is software interoperability, with reports that facilities management systems are unable to easily import BIM data produced during the design and construction stages. Additionally, facilities managers were not treated as salient stakeholders by Project Managers, further negatively affecting facilities management project success outcomes. A µresistance to change was identified as another barrier, as facilities managers were sceptical of the ability of current BIMenabled systems promoted as being FM compatible to be able to replicate their existing Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) legacy software and its user required capabilities. The results of this study highlight that more work is needed to ensure that BIM benefits the end user, as there was no reported use of BIM data for dedicated facilities management purposes. Further investigation into the challenges of interoperability could add significant value to this developing research area.The uptake of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been increasing, but some of its promoted potential benefits have been slow to materialise. In particular, claims that BIM will revolutionise facilities management (FM) creating efficiencies in the whole-life of building operations have yet to be achieved on a wide scale, certainly in comparison to tangible progress made for the prior design and construction phases. To attempt to unravel the factors at play in the adoption of BIM during the operational phase, and in particular, understand if adoption by facilities managers (FMs) is lagging behind other disciplines, this study aims to understand if current BIM processes can ease the challenges in this area faced by facilities management project stakeholders. To do this, success from a facilities management viewpoint is considered and barriers to facilities management success are explored, with focused BIM use proposed as a solution to these barriers. Qualitative research was undertaken, using semi structured interviews to collect data from a non-probability sample of 7 project- and facilities- management practitioners. Key results from this study show that the main barrier to BIM adoption by facilities managers is software interoperability, with reports that facilities management systems are unable to easily import BIM data produced during the design and construction stages. Additionally, facilities managers were not treated as salient stakeholders by Project Managers, further negatively affecting facilities management project success outcomes. A µresistance to change was identified as another barrier, as facilities managers were sceptical of the ability of current BIMenabled systems promoted as being FM compatible to be able to replicate their existing Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) legacy software and its user required capabilities. The results of this study highlight that more work is needed to ensure that BIM benefits the end user, as there was no reported use of BIM data for dedicated facilities management purposes. Further investigation into the challenges of interoperability could add significant value to this developing research area