Page 56 - Security Today, July/August 2024

Justifying Airport
Security Investments
By Mark Storek
Every article about airport security starts by telling you that airports are considered one of the most challenging environments to secure. With more than a decade of helping major international air- ports implement comprehensive and scalable secu- rity solutions, this is a truth.
Why then, is it so difficult to secure the budget you need for critical airport security investments?
Traditionally, security investments deliver a minimal return on investment, reducing their appeal for decision makers and budget holders across industries. However, the evolution of technologies traditionally reserved for security has made them more adaptable for broader adoption across organizational silos.
Today, security stakeholders’ investments have the potential to drive impact across every department of the airport ecosys- tem. Rolling out analytics delivers significant excitement as de- partments typically overlooked in security initiatives (operations, maintenance, passenger satisfaction, and real estate manage- ment) realize they all become beneficiaries. The ability to lever- age existing investments in cameras, VMS and sub systems and provide valuable business intelligence to stakeholders at a large facility is a dramatic shift in traditional approaches to security.
It is no secret. All airports implement an integrated and lay- ered approach to their security technology programs. These ro- bust solutions are built to proactively prevent security events, empower rapid, real-time response and accelerate post-event in- vestigations. While each technology component is critical to the success of each of these functions, video analytics has taken the spotlight to optimize security while delivering value across other business functions.
Video analytics is an AI-driven technology which detects, identifies, extracts and catalogs objects in video for driving di- verse and comprehensive decision making based on the extracted and classified data. The analysis can be performed in real-time or over extended periods of time, enabling system operators to improve situational awareness, gather long-term trend data, and quickly review incidents. Whereas these functions have always been relevant for safety and security, they are increasingly sup- porting operational applications in industries from retail and hospitality to healthcare, manufacturing and finance.
For this reason -- and because video analytics software can be easily integrated into the open source, open architectures needed by airports – airport security stakeholders can now bring business justification, in the form of data-backed intelligence, to the larger airport organization.
Easing the flow of traffic is always top of mind for airport management, as long queues and overcrowding negatively impact traveler safety and experience. Video analytics can detect, classify and track objects in video feeds to provide data on crowd forma-
tion, bottlenecks and traffic patterns.
An airport can leverage common path and flow statistics to
understand where bottlenecks occur, from parking or drop-off areas all the way through to the gate. Once identified, airport management can intelligently deploy staff to redirect traffic in the moment or strategically implement signage to prevent crowd- ing in the future. The data can be leveraged to inform real-time, rule-based alerts that trigger when crowd formations are detect- ed. Comprehensive crowd management algorithms can be used to detect and manage groupings of varying sizes to meet diverse needs throughout the airport.
Furthermore, because video analytics offers unprecedented situational awareness and visibility into an event, management is empowered to make strategic decisions during retrospective evaluations. Focused video investigation and business intelligence dashboards make scene understanding a breeze so key stakehold- ers can draw data-backed conclusions that improve the journey.
Airport staff are the backbone of airport operational success, maximizing operational efficiency. However, simply employing and deploying more manpower is not effective if they are not po- sitioned based on need.
Airport maintenance schedules are historically based on fixed intervals which do not take location or real-time traffic into ac- count. With video analytics, maintenance managers can first evaluate traffic trends for instance, restrooms, across all termi- nals. Based on the data, they can set rule-based alerts that trigger cleaning only when a specified number of people have used the facilities. This approach eliminates unnecessary cleaning while ensuring adequate resources are available where and when they are needed.
With better long-term intelligence and real-time situational awareness, airport managers can direct staffing and services with- in different terminals to accommodate known trends, prevent crowding and plan for contingencies. Intelligent video analytics arms airport management with data to predictively hire and pro- actively deploy staff based on data-backed intelligence from their own environment.
Beyond driving operational efficiency, intelligent video ana- lytics can and should be used to effectively use space and sup- port the airport retail community. Managers can view heatmaps, evaluate visualized reports for crowd and queue formations, and uncover patterns through long-term report-
ing to quantify the amount of visitor traffic in
various areas. The resulting data empowers in-
formed decisions that optimize layout of stores
and services in each terminal.
Mark Storek is the strategic account director for BriefCam.
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