Surface Transportation Security Brainstorming Session
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Soft Target Engineering to Neutralize the Threat Reality (SENTRY) Center of Excellence (COE) at Northeastern University (NU) held a brainstorming session on November 18, 2022, with the goal of learning current capabilities and challenges in the surface transportation security sector and to learn what capabilities would be useful in a Virtual Sentry Framework.
The SENTRY team invited workshop attendees whose subject matter expertise could affect future surface transportation security. Participants included administrative and police representatives from several transit systems across the country, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).
The session was conducted virtually as a listening session to hear from stakeholders about the current capabilities and challenges of surface transportation security. Throughout the session, participants noted several features they would like to see in the Virtual SENTRY Framework.
- The technologies and systems need to have interoperability. All stakeholders must have a common operating picture, always, especially during an event.
- It must bring all available information to a command center, especially with social media captured.
- Communication- a collaboration of all stakeholders for each venue to work together.
- It should have a fusion of all advanced sensing information and send out meaningful response information to all stakeholders.
- We would like the technology to allow people to move through the system normally but with the capability to detect those with weapons and ill intent.
This workshop provided an opportunity for a variety of stakeholders to define what is acceptable and mandatory for a Virtual Sentry Framework to do, as well as how it could work to support the prevention of violent intrusions.
