A review of risk-based security and its impact on TSA PreCheck

Abstract

Since September 11, 2001, the United States has invested a significant amount of resources into improving aviation security operations, with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) assuming the responsibilities for security policy-making at commercial airports. This article reviews the literature that supports policies for risk-based passenger screening procedures and chronicles the analytical analysis leading up to the launch (in October 2011) of the TSA Precheck program, as a first step toward implementing a risk-based security strategy for passenger and baggage screening. Multi-level passenger prescreening is the basis of the mathematical framework behind TSA Precheck; the framework provides a prescriptive control of security operations in settings with limited resources. TSA Precheck assigns each passenger to a risk group, based on the initial perceived risk level (assessed in the prescreening stage), and then calibrates the security measures to mitigate the risk associated with each group. With passengers arriving in real-time and the order of their arrivals uncertain, the resource utilization problem is solved by dynamic programming. A numerical comparison between a risk-based and an equal-risk (i.e., non-risk-based) security model is presented to quantify the benefits of risk-based security.

Keywords:

• Aviation security
• dynamic programming
• passenger screening
• sequential assignment
• TSA Precheck

Acknowledgments

Kenneth Fletcher served as the Chief Risk Office for the Transportation Security Administration from 2014 through 2016, where he was the principle architect responsible for the implementation and operation of TSA Precheck. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the Associate Editor for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DMI-0114499; and the National Science Foundation under Grant CMMI-0900226. Any findings and opinions in this paper do not necessarily reflect the view of the US Government or the National Science Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Laura A. Albert

Laura Albert is a professor of industrial & systems engineering and a Harvey D. Spangler Faculty Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests are in the field of operations research, with a particular focus on discrete optimization with application to homeland security and emergency response problems. Dr. Albert has authored or co-authored 70 publications in archival journals and refereed proceedings. She is an Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) Fellow. She has been awarded many honors for her research, including the INFORMS Impact Prize, four publication awards, a National Science Foundation CAREER award, a Fulbright Award, and a Young Investigator Award. Dr. Albert has served on the INFORMS Board as the Vice President for Marketing, Communication, and Outreach and as the Assistant Dean for Graduate Affairs in the College of Engineering at UW-Madison. She is the author of the blogs “Punk Rock Operations Research” and “Badger Bracketology.”

Alexander Nikolaev

Alexander Nikolaev is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has a BSc from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and M.S. from the Ohio State University and PhD from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (both in industrial engineering). Dr. Nikolaev's interests and expertise are in resource allocation under uncertainty, social network analysis, causal inference, and decision-making that supports pro-health, pro-environmental and educational programs. He has (co-)authored 50 publications in archival journals and refereed proceedings, and was a (co-)recipient of INFORMS Impact Prize and University at Buffalo Teaching Innovation Award.

Adrian J. Lee

Adrian J. Lee is President of Central Illinois Technology and Education Research Institute. He conducts research in the fields of optimization and control. He has BSc degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering from Northwestern University, and a MS and PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Lee previously served as research coordinator on the Transportation Research Board’s Committee for Aviation Security and Emergency Management, and was co-recipient of the INFORMS Impact Prize.

Kenneth Fletcher

Kenneth C. Fletcher is President and founder of Kestrel Hawk Consulting. He has a BS in operations management and information systems from the University of Northern Illinois, and an M.A. in security studies (homeland security and defense) from the Naval Postgraduate School. He is a former Assistant Administrator/Chief Risk Officer at the Transportation Security Administration and a principle architect of the federal government’s risk-based aviation security approach and the TSA Pre-Check program. Mr. Fletcher serves as the 2020 President of the Association for Federal Enterprise Risk Management (AFERM). He was a co-recipient of the INFORMS Impact Prize.

Sheldon H. Jacobson

Sheldon H. Jacobson is a Founder Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has a BSc and MSc (both in mathematics) from McGill University, and a MS and PhD (both in operations research) from Cornell University. Dr. Jacobson research focuses on data-driven risk-based decision-making applied to problems in public health and public policy. He has been working on the design and analysis of aviation security systems using operations research and artificial intelligence models since 1995. He has received numerous awards for this research, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the Award for Technical Innovation in Industrial Engineering from the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, and the INFORMS Impact Prize. He is an elected Fellow of INFORMS, the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).