Evaluation of the effectiveness of an airport passenger and baggage security screening system

Abstract

Airport security managers need methods to quantify changes in security level to prevent terrorist attacks. This study presents a method using a fuzzy inference system to assess the overall effectiveness of prohibited items detection during passenger and baggage security screening. The results show that the screening system performance can be improved from medium to high by upgrading screening devices at hold baggage checkpoints and by increasing the frequency of training sessions. In the case of increased risk of terrorist attacks an obligation to control 20 percent of passengers manually and 30 percent increase in the sensitivity of metal detectors increases system performance to very high detection level. On the positive side our results show that these results can be achieved with minimum financial outlays, while on the negative side system throughput is somewhat reduced. Overall our results show that screening performance can be improved substantially, but as the required performance level rises there is a trade-off with system throughput and personnel training costs.