Public Transit Security: Four Years After 9/11 Eva Lerner-Lam Palisades Consulting Group, Inc. Presented at the NYU Wagner Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management 6 th Annual Tri-State Transit Symposium Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Overview of Presentation What’s happened, four years after 9/11?  9/11 Commission Findings and “Common Sense” Recommendations  Congressional Action—and inaction  Research and Development—big bang for a small buck  Education, Training and Drills—win-win for everyone  What we must overcome…  Political Atrophy  Process vs. technology (both are important, but technology is not the “magic bullet”)  “I can tell you, but then I’d have to shoot you…”  Who’s going to pay for all this?

9/11 Commission Report: Key Finding  “Lack of Imagination” by people and organizations with responsibility for public safety and security

9/11 Commission Report Findings  “Fighting terrorism was not a high priority”  Capabilities of Intelligence, Defense and other agencies were constrained by antiquated and ineffective policies and processes  Inefficient management of government: “The enemy made mistakes; our government wasn’t able to capitalize on them.”

9/11 Commission Report Recommendations—July 2004  DHS should develop an integrated plan to focus resources in a manner to best protect all the transportation modes  Seek improvements in technologies with applications across transportation modes  Standardize equipment, data, processes

9/11 Commission Report  H.R. 5040[108]: 9/11 Commission Report Implementation Act of 2004 – never became law  Non-profit organization 9-11 Public Discourse Project is trying to carry on the efforts of Commission

9-11 Commission’s Public Discourse Project “Common Sense” Recommendations 1. 1.Radio Spectrum for first Responders 2. 2.Adoption of Incident Command System 3. 3.Congressional Funding Based on Risk and Vulnerability Assessments, not “pork” 4. 4.Complete two critical reports recommended by the Commission and required by the Intelligence Reform Act.   A National Strategy for Transportation Security (due April 1, 2005)   A report assessing the vulnerability of the national’s critical infrastructure (due June 15, 2005)

What’s Been Done So Far…

A National Framework for Better Integrated Incident Management  March 2004: DHS established a uniform set of processes and procedures that emergency responders at all levels of government will use to conduct response operations.

A National Framework for Better Integrated Planning  December 2004: DHS developed a National Response Plan (NRP) that consolidates and reconciles multiple, national-level incident response plans into a single, focused, universally understood strategy

Transit Vulnerability Assessments  Bus, Rail and Ferry Operators have performed vulnerability assessments of operations and facilities

Frequent, Available, Affordable Security Training for Transit Personnel Administered through the National Transit Institute:   Transit Explosives Incident Management   Effectively Managing Transit Emergencies   Transit System Security   Transit System Security: Design Review   Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design   Threat Management and Emergency Response to Rail Hijackings   Threat Management and Emergency Response to Bus Hijackings

TOPOFF Exercises TOPOFF Exercises  TOPOFF 1 CO/NH May 2001  TOPOFF 2 WA/IL/DC/Canada May 2003  TOPOFF 3 NY/NJ/CT April 2005

Mixed Results from Research Efforts  Strong research program sponsored by Transportation Research Board  Updated Powerpoint slides summarizing program: urity#trbppmonth urity#trbppmonth urity#trbppmonth  Lack of coordination and significant progress by DHS or TSA research programs:

FY 2005 Transit Security Grant Program Allocations 1 Funding for the Ferry portion of the award is derived from the funds provided for port security

FY 2005 Transit Security Grant Program Allocation to NY-NJ-CT Region

Pending Congressional Legislation  Placed on Calendar in Senate:  Federal Public Transportation Act of 2005 [S.907]  Introduced in House  Rail Transit Security and Safety Act of 2005 [H.R.1109]  Secure Trains Act [H.R.3270]  Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2005 [H.R.153]

Challenge #1: Political Atrophy  Inability of US Congress to pass meaningful legislation for public transit security  Funding appropriations based on political influence instead of risks and vulnerabilities

Challenge #2: Over-Reliance on Technology  Technology can only go so far; must also address Process improvements, including:  “Layered” security throughout the system  Employee duties adapted for security  Securing contractors and supply chains  Lack of interoperability between systems

Challenge #3: Reluctance to Share Information and Best Practices  Notion that security-related projects must be kept secret, even among peers and colleagues, for fear of information falling into the “wrong hands” (or those of a competitor)  Need to find a way to exchange knowledge or we risk unnecessary duplication of effort--or worse  To “win the war” we need to find ways to communicate with each other on the “battlefield”!

Challenge #4: Who’s paying for all this security?  Partnership between government, private sector and users

In Summary  For public transit, a lot less progress than we’d all hoped for after 9/11  Some high level national planning framework documents  Some good research by TRB  Some useful training, exercises and drills  Need to address some key challenges:  Lack of national leadership and funding  Difficulty in sharing knowledge and lessons learned  Re-emphasize importance of Process, in addition to Technology

We need to push ahead aggressively  For our First Responders…

We need to push ahead aggressively  And for our families…