"Airport security focus of new research center"

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Airport security focus of new center
By JOHN DELLA CONTRADA 
The University at Buffalo (NY) Reporter


A research institute to examine ways to improve security systems at airports
and other transportation hubs is being established at UB under a $538,000
grant from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to an
engineering professor who is an expert in human factors that affect aviation
inspection.

To be led by Colin Drury, professor and chair of the Department of
Industrial Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences,
the Research Institute for Safety and Security in Transportation (RISST)
will study human factors that contribute to errors and inefficiencies in
security systems, such as those used to inspect baggage and screen
passengers in airports. 

RISST researchers also will study how and why inspectors fail to find
defects during routine aircraft maintenance. 

Research in this area has been an ongoing focus of Drury's work, funded by
more than $1 million from the Federal Aviation Administration. Much of
Drury's aviation-inspection research now will take place within the RISST,
where he and co-researchers will continue examining the effects of fatigue
on aircraft inspection and the prevalence of language-related errors in
aviation maintenance and inspection. 

An internationally recognized expert on how human factors-such as
ergonomics, fatigue and training-affect aviation inspection, Drury is
applying techniques he developed during more than 30 years of
aircraft-inspection research to the study of transportation security
systems. Drury is a member of TSA's Scientific Advisory Panel and serves on
the National Research Council's Panel on Assessment of Technologies Deployed
to Improve Aviation Security. As a member of these panels, he has reviewed
security systems in airports around the world.

"RISST will produce research that will have immediate impact on TSA's
efforts to improve transportation security systems nationwide, particularly
at airports," Drury says. "The systems in place now can have a low error
rate, but until we achieve a zero percent error rate there's room for
improvement."

Drury expects RISST to be operational next year and equipped with the same
security systems used in airports. Testing with human subjects using the
systems will help UB researchers determine factors that lead to common
airport-security inspection errors related to false alarms and failure to
detect threats. Their analysis will show whether those errors typically
arise from poor searching or from poor decision making, among other factors.


The results will be used by TSA to identify and respond to potential
breakdowns in transportation security systems, Drury says. 

"Many errors occur at the point where humans and technology work together to
make a decision," Drury says. "Depending on the system, this could mean the
technology needs to be tailored for more efficient human use or that humans
need to be better trained to use the system." 

Data from RISST studies will be compiled in a database and made available to
other researchers nationwide working on projects to advance public safety. 

The institute also will apply its resources and findings to improve safety
and security outside of airports and in and around other potential terror
targets, Drury says.


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dcfp/dcboard.php


*****************************************