Inspection Strategies in Airport Security Systems

这笔赠款为构思和开发设计机场安检系统的科学平台提供资金。在第一部分中，我们考虑了以纯粹随机的方式(在不知道乘客的个体属性的情况下)将乘客选入组的问题。我们首先考虑一个静态模型，在该模型中忽略了旅客到达的时间方面。然后，我们采用这个基本模型，并通过纳入到达旅客的时间效应来对其进行增强。并对两个案例进行了分析。我们研究了一个排队模型，该模型将每个检查站视为一个运行在稳态的独立M/M/c排队，并使用时间齐次Poisson流对旅客到达进行建模。我们还研究了一个仿真模型，该模型捕捉了系统的非稳态行为，并允许对乘客到达过程的一般表示。我们工作的第二部分将调查：(I)在分配分组时使用乘客属性对安全系统效率的潜在改善；以及(Ii)对几个检查站可以一致工作来检测威胁项目的情况进行分析。如果成功，这项研究的结果将对几个联邦机构有用，包括运输安全管理局、联邦航空局和联邦政府国土安全部部门。拟议的工作将使人们更好地了解应如何根据总体威胁概率的变化改变安保程序。最后，它将提供一个量化框架，以了解(1)在将乘客分配给集团时使用个别属性可能带来的潜在效率改进，以及(2)考虑设备对存在潜在威胁物品的联合反应。

This grant provides funding for the conceptualization and development of a scientific platform for the design of airport security systems. In the first part, we consider the selection of passengers into groups in a purely random manner (without knowledge of their individual attributes). We first consider a static model in which the temporal aspect of passenger arrivals is ignored. We then take this basic model and enhance it by incorporating the temporal effects of arriving passengers. Two cases are analyzed. We investigate a queuing model, which considers each check station as an independent M/M/c queue operating in steady state and models passenger arrivals using a time-homogeneous Poisson stream. We also investigate a simulation model that captures the non-steady state behavior of the system and allows for a general representation of the passenger arrival process. The second part of our work will investigate: (i) the potential improvement in the efficiency of the security system by using passenger attributes in assigning groups; and (ii) the analysis of the case where several check stations can work in unison to detect a threat item. If successful, the results of this research will be useful to several federal agencies, including the TSA, FAA and the Department of Homeland Security division of the federal government. The proposed work will lead to a better understanding as to how security procedures should be changed in response to changes in the overall threat probability. Finally, it would provide a quantitative framework to understand (i) the potential efficiency improvements that are likely to arise due to the use of individual attributes in passenger assignments to groups, and (ii) consideration of joint response of equipment to the presence of a potential threat item.