Technology At The Ports
May 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Larry Anderson Stephanie Silk Michael Fickes Rafi Bhonker
“Now that we had made the investment, my whole intent was to maximize what these systems were telling us,” says Ed Merkle, Virginia Port Authority's director of port security and emergency operations. “It's critically important, from a security perspective, to know how that breach occurred. Was it an intentional breach in security or was it an accident?”
Merkle also had to transition the port from using security as a deterrent to using security proactively. It was important to identify a hole in a fence immediately after the incident occurred instead of having a security officer locate it hours or days later, only to have to pull up old surveillance video to pinpoint what happened.
The need to make a significant change in how it handles security prompted the Virginia Port Authority to implement Situator, a security and safety Situation Management software for integrated control rooms, from Orsus, New York.
With Situator, the Virginia Port Authority can integrate existing security systems to be managed and monitored in a single, software-based platform. Using the software and a visual interface, the port can view a map of its facilities and locations of each security device, identify a security incident as it happens and follow proper steps and procedures, such as pulling up additional surveillance video to view a situation, dispatching a security officer to further investigate an incident or notifying superiors of a major incident.
Situator also enables the port to tie in new systems it might implement in the future and supports C-TPAT (Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism) compliance.
These capabilities were key for the Virginia Port Authority, which built a new command and control center at its terminal in Norfolk to monitor the events at its facilities. Beyond the ability to manage its security systems, Situator also enables the port to effectively manage its team of 87 police officers spread out at three locations.
“For a breach of security, if someone jumps a fence, the dispatcher had to go from a hardcopy manual or from memory on who to contact and when,” says Capt. Mike Brewer of the Virginia Port Authority Police Department. “Situator does that for us. It's a good checklist, and with this, we have the electronic documentation of the events that occurred and the ability to provide a report, which goes into our files.”
Technology on the Horizon
Ensuring that no one tampers with cargo containers is an ongoing concern of port security, and one to which emerging technology is offering a new approach.
A Portsmouth, N.H.-based non-profit organization called NI
“The laboratory developed the technology for the government and now wants to transfer it to the commercial market,” says Don Bliss, director of NI
Called ultra wide-band radar, the technology is housed in a box that resides inside a cargo container. The radar emissions form a bubble that encompasses the container. The device detects changes inside the container by analyzing changes in the bubble. Data is sent by radio to a monitoring station.
“The device can detect when and where someone opened the door of the container as well as whether someone had drilled a hole in it, removed a side panel and tampered with something inside,” Bliss says.
While protecting each of tens of millions of containers with tens of millions of these boxes sounds expensive, Bliss believes the cost is reasonable. “We have gotten the price of commercial production down to about $100 per container per trip,” he says.
The technology includes sensors that measure environmental changes inside the container to weed out false-positives. Suppose, for example, that the radar detects changes in the radar bubble indicating that the door to the container had swung open. If it really happened, the temperature inside the container would change. But if the temperature sensor inside the container detected no change, then the event would be considered a false positive.
Another sensor inside the container monitors G-forces or the shaking and rattling of the container. Livermore developed an algorithm capable of comparing the G-force readings with data from the radar device enabling the system to distinguish between shifting cargo and cargo tampering.
NI
“This is a cooperative effort between the public and private sectors,” Bliss says. “It involves the shippers, ports and a number of law enforcement agencies: the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, state police in various states, Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard and other groups.”
NI
A clearinghouse is also being established to evaluate the information, weed out remaining false-positives and forward alarm data to the appropriate parties. To avoid sending the information to the wrong party and causing confusion, when an alarm goes off, the system will inform all of the agencies in the loop.
“But the policies and procedures will clearly define responsibilities and protocols for everyone,” Bliss says. “If the container is at sea, the Coast Guard will know that the problem is theirs to deal with. Everyone else will know that the Coast Guard is in charge.
“If the container is on a truck moving along a highway, the state police in that state will know that it is their responsibility and so on.”
Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2010 Penton Media Inc.
Story Missing Your Link?
Is the above story missing a link? Is it missing a link to your company, or your website? If this is the case please e-mail us and we'll add the link as soon as possible. Thank you!
advertisement
