R&D for Transportation Security
The chemical attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 and suspected sabotage causing the derailment of an Amtrak train that same year made the nation aware of the vulnerability of the surface transportation system to terrorism. In response, Congress requested an assessment of this vulnerability and the development of an R&D strategy for improving security.
The committee that took up this task encouraged USDOT to develop an R&D strategy before establishing a detailed research agenda (Improving Surface Transportation Security; NRC 1999). This strategy should be founded on a systematic process of five steps: clear definition of the problem and objectives, identification of a wide array of possible solutions, rigorous evaluation of those alternatives, careful decision making, and effective implementation. This process should be implemented across rather than within modes.
Moreover, USDOT should understand and be sensitive to its role. The federal government itself is responsible for the operation of but a small fraction of the nation’s infrastructure, which is generally owned and managed by other units of government. Thus the federal purview is far smaller than it is often understood to be by the public. It is most important to involve the owners and operators of the transportation system in the development and implementation of any security strategy, as well as in the R&D that informs it. In addition, much of the potentially relevant R&D for security is being conducted by and through other federal agencies, and a good part of USDOT’s role should be surveying promising technologies, adapting them to transportation applications, and sharing the resulting knowledge with other system operators. The committee concluded further that a dual-use approach, in which security objectives are furthered along with other transportation goals, has the most potential for successful application.