Preventing Mass Transit Terror Attacks

Oct 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Michael Fickes

But how can intelligent video technology prevent a terrorist from setting off a bomb in a subway station or on a train?

Preventive solutions begin with information garnered from investigations of terrorist attacks, explains Mariann McDonagh, vice president of global marketing with Verint Inc., Long Island, N.Y., a video analytics company. “Our solution enables users to tune the rules as new information becomes available,” she says. “Suppose an investigation shows that a suicide bomber carried a package of a particular size and shape. We can now alert the (intelligent video) system to watch for a person carrying this kind of package.”

The Verint product, called Nextiva Transit, can also be programmed to watch for people loitering on transit platforms or people wearing heavy coats on hot summer days. Intelligent video systems look for anomalies as well as images that law enforcement believe may appear prior to a terrorist bombing attack.

In addition, Nextiva Transit can coordinate information collected by the video system with information from access control, motion detection or other security technology.

Alternate Imaging Technologies

Intelligent video technology can work with conventional video cameras as well as new imaging systems being adapted to mass transit security applications. For example, a millimeter wave imaging system developed by Brijot Imaging Systems Inc., Orlando, Fla., can see through everyday clothing and identify shapes of guns and other kinds of weapons.

Brijot technology identifies people and objects by detecting and analyzing the millimeter waves they give off. To avoid the problem of imaging through clothing, the Brijot system does not build a millimeter wave image. Instead, the system works in conjunction with a conventional video camera. When the millimeter wave side of the system identifies a hidden gun or other weapon, the video side sends a picture of the fully clothed person to an alarm monitor. The system also prints the word gun or knife on the image, next to the spot where the weapon was detected, enabling a security officer to take appropriate preventive action.

Brijot proposes millimeter wave technology to form the core of a new mass transit screening system that would detect weapons and explosives, without slowing down the flow of passengers to and from the transportation platform.

“We suggest using this technology to screen mass transit passengers by setting up a ‘Y-shaped’ traffic flow,” says Ted Humphrey, vice president of technology for DefenderTech, Dayton, Ohio, a distributor that markets Brijot's millimeter wave imaging technology. “At the bottom of the Y, people might move through a turnstile. This would channel traffic into a single file line and allow the camera to view each one-by-one. At the top of the Y, a security officer could ask a person flagged by the system to veer onto one segment of the “Y”, while everyone else followed the other fork to the boarding platforms. It could all be done quickly without slowing people down.”

Humphrey also notes that the Brijot system can be monitored by intelligent video software systems that would not grow fatigued while watching hundreds of images.

Thermal imaging systems can contribute to preventive security measures necessary around the exterior perimeter of a facility. “Thermal imaging is typically an outside, low light or nighttime solution,” says Sharon Roberts, strategic market and business analyst with L-3 Communications Infrared Products, Dallas. “By detecting heat, these imagers can detect activity at a distance at night as well as through bad weather. Thermal imagers also work very well in conjunction with intelligent video software systems.”

Special Events, Special Transit Security

For the most part, local and state transit authorities have been struggling to develop their own strategies for preventing terrorist attacks on train and subway facilities. At the national level, TSA has also put together several programs that address the problem.

At the end of 2004, for example, TSA completed a program called the Transit and Rail Inspection Pilot (TRIP). In developing TRIP, TSA adapted airport explosive screening technologies to mass transit settings.

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