TSA finds most railroad security measures inadequate

As the Democratic-controlled congress continues to fuss and fight to increase railroad security spending, a recent DHS test of the most promising possible technologies has found that all of them present such serious technological difficulties that deployment may not be worth the price. According to the report, which was not made public, many of the more ambitious exploisves detectors and screening devices triggered excessive false alarms, while others “could not consistently locate the item that caused the alarm.” As a result, said the Transportation Security Administration’s Robert Jamison, “There’s no plan to put any of the technology that was tested in the pilot in broad-based use. We want to continue to do more research.” Or, as industry gury Bruce Jenkins put it: “We’re years away from any technological solution.”

Even the most basic of solutions — metal detectors, X-rays, and canines — are far from comforting. While the first two are reliable, they can result in lengthy delays inappropriate for the railroad experience. As for dogs, they require airflow to locate explosives (not always possible in underground rail tunnels) and have to rest every forty-five minutes. “Using canines for person screening is still a developing technology,” the report says. Cost is an issue as well, especially in smaller regions where the scales are uneconomic. In the New York City subway, for instance, the use of machines and dogs would cost 40 cents per trip — a price that might be added in to the fare. Yet in Cleveland, whose subways carry only 19,000 passengers a day compared with New York’s 6 million, the cost would be $3.45 per trip. “Tests like this that show even this advanced technology is not really ready,” said TSA chief Kip Hawley, “and there are other things we can do better right now.”

-read more in Thomas Frank’s USA Today report