How security and safety executives at urban mass transit, seaport and airport operations, with common and diverse challenges, using security technologies and especially video in traditional and emerging solutions can gain from a bigger picture that compares technology approaches and their effectiveness in transport solutions
by Mark S. Wilson, Infinova
Urban mass transit, seaports and airports have common security needs but also diverse missions, locations, regulations and requirements. This demands a firm focus on the need to move people and cargo safety and securely while supporting the business goals and regulatory needs of the operation. In addition to the role of policies, procedures and people, myriad security technologies are in action and must be constantly evaluated for their effectiveness, need to upgrade and new approaches. Security video is one of those essential tools, both in standalone approaches and within integrated configurations where intrusion, access, facility management and communications all work in concert.
When it comes to mass transit, it is usually defined as transportation by a conveyance that provides regular and continuing general or special transportation to the public, but does not include school buses, charter, or sightseeing transportation. Mass transportation modes include inter-city buses, trolleybuses, subway & commuter rail, demand response services, heavy and light rail, automated guideway transit, cable cars and monorails. Mass transit systems provide over 9.6 billion passenger trips per year. The U.S. mass transportation fleet is comprised of 144,000 vehicles, of which 56 percent are buses. In addition, Amtrak operates a nationwide rail transport network of 22,000 miles of track, and serves 21 million passengers per year at more than 500 stations. Several mass transit systems often share terminals and other facilities. In general, the smaller transit systems are independently owned and operated. Larger systems are typically operated by transport agencies that are owned by governmental or quasi-governmental organizations. The largest mass transit agencies are located in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, Philadelphia and New Jersey.
Individual security executives at the various local facilities as well as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), a sector of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have common goals. They seek to advance mass transit and passenger rail security through a comprehensive strategic approach that enhances capabilities to detect, deter, prevent, and respond to crimes including terrorist attacks. Their common objective is to first, prevent attacks and security incidents and then respond to and recover from, any incidents that do occur. The TSA’s strategic priorities for mass transit and passenger rail security are:
- focus efforts to mitigate high consequence risk to transit assets and systems, particularly underwater and underground infrastructure
- expand employment of random, unpredictable deterrence
- build security force multipliers with technologies, training, drills and exercises, and public awareness.
Urban mass transport
Unlike the large airports and, to a degree, seaports, urban mass transportation systems face fewer federal security regulations and requirements. The only regulatory authority that the TSA has exercised in the mass transit industry was the 2004 Security Directives RAILPAX-04-01 and RAILPAX-04-02. These required rail transportation operators to implement certain protective measures, to report potential threats and security concerns to the TSA, and to designate a primary and alternate security coordinator. TSA surface transportation security inspectors, from the TSA Office of Security Operations, conduct on-site inspections of mass transit and passenger rail agencies and maintain collaborative working relationships with industry representatives. They work closely with the TSA Mass Transit Security Division for support and program direction. The TSA, in coordination with its federal partners, has the Transit, Commuter and Long-Distance Rail Government Coordinating Council (GCC) to bring together the Federal entities with responsibilities that affect the transit security. Getting Everyone Involved Outreach to stakeholders in the mass transit and passenger rail community established a modal coordinating council. With the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) as the Secretary to the council, the Mass Transit Sector Coordinating Council has been organized around an existing body of the APTA Security Affairs Steering Committee.
The TSA has also established the Transit Policing and Security Peer Advisory Group. The TSA works with transit agency security professionals to harness the application of resources and the development of programs to maximize the impact in enhancing security. The advisory group brings together the expertise of numerous transit police chiefs and security directors from systems as a consultative forum with extensive experience to facilitate development and implementation of effective security programs.
Seaport security
Seaport security is a different kettle of fish. The U.S. maritime transportation system is vital to the global economy. Over 95 percent of non-North American trade enters the country through U.S. seaports. These seaports handle over $740 billion and 2 billion tons of domestic and international freight annually with foreign vessels making 50,000 port calls annually. The seaports and maritime transportation infrastructure face multiple threats from the vessels, people, and cargo that move through them. Seaport security calls for a layered defense that starts far beyond the U.S. mainland. At the facilities themselves, the U.S. Coast Guard, Homeland Security, and state and local rules and regulations are in force. Most seaports include portions of the facility owned and operated by private concerns inside of a publicly operated facility. Seaport challenges include:
- ensuring security before cargo ships reach port as covered by the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 (MTSA). This initiative enables the Coast Guard to develop, review, and approve vessel and facility security plans, ensure foreign vessels are meeting security standards, enhance its intelligence capacity and provide underwater detection capability.
- improving information and intelligence. The Coast Guard’s maritime domain awareness programs spotlight on understanding what transits through or near the nation’s waters. MTSA regulations require commercial vessels to install automatic identification systems, which broadcast certain vessel information that helps identify and locate vessels in the U.S. maritime domain.
- the container security initiative (CSI) allows DHS to pre-screen cargo before it reaches a U.S. seaport.
- radiation detection monitors are used to screen passengers and cargo coming into the United States.
- in the United States, the customs-trade partnership against terrorism (C-TPAT) leverages public/private partnerships to improve security along the entire supply chain, from the factory floor, to foreign vendors, land borders, and seaports, while expediting border processing for legitimate shipments.
- the transportation worker identification credential (TWIC) is a vital security measure that is designed to prevent individuals who pose a threat do not gain unescorted access to secure areas of the nation’s maritime transportation system.
Part of the need to identify, authenticate and constantly check people against federal databases, TWIC was established by Congress through the MTSA and is administered jointly by the TSA and the Coast Guard. TWICs are tamper-resistant biometric credentials issued to workers who require unescorted access to secure areas of ports, vessels, outer continental shelf facilities and all credentialed merchant mariners. More than 1.5 million workers including longshoremen, truckers, port employees and any others requiring unescorted access to a port area now have a TWIC. To obtain a TWIC, an individual must provide biographic and biometric information such as fingerprints, sit for a digital photograph and successfully pass a federal background check. Airline Security With its tragic 9/11 history, and recent shoe and underwear bombing attempts, airline and airport security has special security needs. The biggest U.S. airports handle a lot of cargo as well as 618,415,203 passengers on domestic flights in 2009. Airports are divided into landside and airside areas. Landside areas include parking lots, public transportation train stations, tank farms and access roads. Airside areas include all areas accessible to aircraft, including runways, taxiways, ramps, hangers and tank farms. Access from landside areas to airside areas is tightly controlled at most airports. Passengers on commercial flights access airside areas through terminals, where they can purchase tickets, clear security screening, check or claim luggage and board aircraft through secured gates. Secure Identification Areas, or “SIDA” (pronounced See-da) are further restricted to only authorized and properly credentialed personnel.
Airport security
Airport and airline security is diverse and complex and includes multiple layers of security and multiple systems that operate to implement different security objectives. There are perimeter systems to alert of unauthorized vehicles and people, door monitoring, access controls for airport and airline employees, cargo screening, passenger screening, and security video within the facilities, among other systems. There continues to be advances, enhancements and new technology, most often instituted or directed by the TSA and Homeland Security. Systems, procedures and requirements often change and evolve in this sector of transit. Within U.S. airports, security solutions are diverse but fall into one of three categories: passengers, cargo and facility/perimeter security. Security technologies include:
- active and passive millimeter wave screening systems
- smart surveillance camera solutions
- hostile intent (behavioral Pattern) and facial identification software integration into video surveillance
- explosives trace detection equipment to supplement informed random screening of passengers and bags, including hand-held systems
- table top baggage screening systems
- document scanners to screen tickets or fare cards handled by passengers.
- integrated monitoring and control software for a holistic view of safety, security and logical controls.
While passenger screening is the purview of TSA, airport facility security falls under the local security director. But, no matter what the location – urban mass transit, seaports or airports – security technology ranging from intrusion to card access to security video is only one tool. These security executives also employ policies and procedures which are the heart of most programs, according to TranSystems, an industry leader in providing complete solutions to the transportation challenges of its clients. They say that much of the security for transit and transportation are driven by government requirements and regulations. They also see a coming together of security and operations. On the performance side, security executives need to look at what best would control access to a given area.
Security video
While card access control and perimeter intrusion are important elements of a total security plan, security video has become crucial for deterrence, monitoring, identification and after-event forensics. When it comes to urban mass transit, security video is on rail platforms, in bus stations and even on buses and rail cars. With seaports, cameras guard the perimeter, on the property and even are in aerial and underwater drones that patrol the facility. At airports, intelligent security video can provide alerts to objects left and people walking the wrong way in a corridor. While there are many security technologies in this sector, a growingly important one is security video. As with commercial and corporate video surveillance, legacy systems are analog based but the strong trend is to digital or IP-based video. The overall transition strategy is coexistence of analog and digital as end users move to higher level megapixel and high definition cameras, more processing and intelligence at the edge, better compression, a variety of transmission means including fiber optics and diverse storage ranging from the camera and local digital and network video recorders to in the cloud services.
Intelligent network-based video surveillance technology based on Internet protocol (IP) can transform yesterday’s analog CCTV system into tomorrow’s feature-packed security management tool. Yesterday’s analog cameras can be replaced by the latest intelligent digital cameras that offer features including multiple megapixels of resolution. These cameras are the ‘edge devices’ on a digital network that takes advantage of all the standards and functionality of the same advanced networking technologies. Cable costs are lowered by the use of Cat-5 unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable instead of coax. With networked video, there is remote access anywhere, anytime. Non-proprietary hardware is easily accommodated, and computer technologies such as distributed recording servers and networked storage, increase capabilities.
Today, transit security executives can choose from an existing array of intelligent cameras and edge devices, including content analytics-enabled cameras, which themselves can supplement the content analytics software that resides at back end. These include:
- motion detection (the size/shape, speed and direction of a moving object)
- non-motion detection, such as stalled vehicles or an abandoned object
- behavioral analysis, such as tailgating at entry points or loitering
- accurate optical character recognition (OCR) for applications such as license plate recognition.
The combination of IP with the latest video client devices – whether a desktop, hand-held device, the Internet/wide area network or a command center video wall – makes remote access available anywhere, an essential feature for mobile transit security executives.
When an incident happens, intelligent video is a useful investigative tool. Advanced megapixel cameras expand capabilities, whether digital pan-tilt-zoom of live or recorded images, or fixed high definition cameras with virtual PTZ patrolling. Security video is also a crucial tool with an integrated system, where the combined data from all of the systems (safety, security, surveillance) can be accessed instantly based on time, motion or event, and can be more efficiently analyzed and acted upon.
For mass transportation systems, a unique application is video recording on a moving bus or train. There can be local storage or video streaming, often through wireless mesh networks. In a metro system, camera positioning is paramount. If the person cannot be recognized, the system is of no value as a deterrent.
For instance, both the entrances and exits of metro stations have fixed cameras, each capable of viewing a person from the front as they enter a ticket-check station. In each of the metro halls, an integrated high-speed dome camera surveys the entire facility. Secluded corners also have additional fixed cameras so that these areas are not out of sight to the surveillance system. Cameras are also on the platforms to give rail system administrators an overview of passenger flow and help train drivers make sure that all passengers are on or off the train before the train is put into motion. Although complex, the system is easy for operators to run. For instance, a control center operator can call up and control video in each station via one of the keyboards connected to the Ethernet network.
However, they cannot do anything solely at will because control procedures and priorities are managed uniformly by a sole management server within the network.