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Security Against Terrorism
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 Security has been elevated to a major policy goal for transportation, on an equal footing with goals of mobility, safety, and environmental protection. The ubiquity and openness of transportation systems in the United States represent at the same time transportation’s strongest virtues and greatest vulnerabilities. Measures solely designed to increase security risk considerable loss in efficiency and convenience. |
| Traditional security measures based only on simply perimeter defenses will probably not be successful in eliminating breaches and could impose large economic and social costs. Instead, transportation security can best be achieved through a layered security system, characterized by an interleaved and concentric set of security measures. Layered systems cannot be breached by the defeat of a single security feature—such as a guard or gate—as each layer provides backup for the others, such that impermeability of individual layers is not required. The more that a layered strategy builds on opportunities to improve efficiency in passenger and goods movement and protection of against crime, the more likely it will be applied and sustained over time. |
 A security research agenda should be driven by the strategies needed to deter, protect against, and respond to threats, rather than by opportunities suggested by individual technologies. |
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