Literature Review on the topic
Topic - The convergence of transportation congestion and transportation security at a U.S. seaport.
In 2009 the American Recovery and Investment Act was introduced to fund for the surface transportation program such as rail, highway, and the marine. It is the responsibility of the transportation agencies to evaluate the investments on the basis of security of public and goods, raise economic growth and sustainable cost minimization (John, Yang, & Riahi, 2018). The Marine transportation security act was introduced in November 2002 with several strict provisions for fostering safety and security of shipping.
- Establishing the sensor technology, information and intelligence processing tool to observe the maritime.
- Using the IP networks in ITSs (Intelligence transportation systems).
- Introduce the automated tools for improving data fusion and management for improving tracking and detection.
- Increasing security level for the seaport transportation.
- Enable the multiagency collaboration and communication.
- Safeguard cargo transport.
These strategies implemented in the maritime transportation not only helped in improving security but also helped in controlling congestion (Jiang, Wan, & Zhang, 2017).
Apart from this, another strategy is the selection of one marine and inland route for reducing traffic (Cotorcea, Nistor, & Popa, 2017). Moreover the multimodal network system was advertised as one of the best alternative in the past.
Discussionof ideas on the topic and problem
The immensetransportation of the shipping vessels all over the world has provided the backbone for economy of USA. However, these shipped goods need to be checked thoroughly as these containers are being used by criminals for transportation of all sort of illegal people and goods. In the past few years, this kind of illegal transportation has become a troublesome problem under the guidance of world terrorism. Terrorists use these kinds of containers for transportation of dangerous weapons. Before the September 11 2001 attack, the seaport security agencies were concerned for the general criminal activity, shipment security,the military deployment security, and passenger and crew security(Jiang, Wan, & Zhang, 2017). At that period, a number of new ideas were introduced for improving security at seaport which includes; developing ways for tracking cargo, developing the port security plans, checking the supply chain by ensuring that the cargoes are sealed at each step, and appointing the public-private partnership to undertake security tasks. However, these port security activities lacked urgency and later the US government realized the gravity of the threat and introduced Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) (Turner, Belcher, & Allen, 2016). These federal actions have been employed to definite degree and thus enhanced the safety and minimized traffic problem in seaports (Cotorcea, Nistor, & Popa, 2017). The local seaports have also started implementing additional security activities for safety purpose. Despite of several security actions taken beforehand, the government need to identify the five basiczones; responsiveness of threat to the seaport, avoidance of any attack to the seaport, preparedness of any attack to the seaport, comebackpost-attack, and recovery post- attack.
Discussion of new solution(s) for the problem
Despites of inclusion of such strong and strict security acts and initiatives, there are still some cases of crimes and traffic at seaport. So, it is needed to increase and improve the security practice at the seaport. It can be done by starting with the major 17 ports viz; Los Angeles; Long Beach; Ft. Lauderdale; Jacksonville; Tampa; New Orleans; Miami; Houston; Texas City; San Diego; Galveston; Charleston; Savannah; Boston; Seattle; Port of Virginia; Tacoma; andLong Beach. At each port, the assessment team needs to address the following matters such as;
- Evaluation of port management and its security concerns both inside and nearby the port
- Type of relationship existing between the main stakeholders involved for provision of security.
- Involvement in local marine security commission.
- Role of intelligence in regard to the security threats.
- Type and level of the training needed for the security staffs.
- Determining the security of the public spaces in the port.
- Determining the daily traffic at the seaport.
- Status of identifications and authorizations for the goods and persons entering through the port.
- Evaluation of the perimeter patrols (landside and seaside) around the seaport.
- Current value of the existing seaport security plans along with identifying the agencies involved in port security.
- Strict inspection of the cargoes and other containers entering and leaving the port.
- Plans to respond towards a security attack and training needed to exercise those plans.
- Enforcement of the access control to enter in the port and other terminals within that port.
- Use of comprehensive solutions, can reduce traffic congestion and the flow management within the port (Cotorcea, Nistor, & Popa, 2017).
- Use of RFID and OCR on the transported containers will enable to track and trace easily their location (Levy, 2015).
Attachment:- Outline.rar