tradeoffs between security and inspection capacity: policy options for land border ports of entry...
TRANSCRIPT
TRADEOFFS BETWEEN SECURITY AND INSPECTION CAPACITY:
POLICY OPTIONS FOR LAND BORDER PORTS OF ENTRY
Hilma VillegasPatrick L. Gurian, Josiah McC. Heyman,
Adrian Mata, Robert Falcone, Edward Ostapowicz, Steven Wilrigs, Michael Petragnani, Eric Eisele
85th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, January 2006, Washington, DC.
BACKGROUND
Post-9/11, international ports-of-entry are seen as a means to protect the United States against entry of terrorists.
In binational metropolitan areas (El Paso-Ciudad Juarez) ports of entry are key nodes in local transportation network– delays at border propagate throughout region
(Villalobos et al. 2005)
BACKGROUND
In the fall of 2001 stringent inspections and waits of several hours at the border crossings.– Anecdotal evidence that at least one compartment
of each vehicle was opened and inspected
Inspections have relaxed and border wait times for 2004-2005 are usually 30 minutes or less.
Has the policy of more detailed inspections yielded to the needs of the local community?
SCOPE OF STUDY
Collect data on existing non-commercial primary inspections to characterize current inspection practices.
Evaluate the feasibility of three alternative inspection strategies
El Paso-Ciudad Juarez area is used as a case study.
ALTERNATIVES CONSIDERED
1. Increase inspection time: open one compartment on each vehicle.
2. Limit time of primary inspection and increase referrals to secondary inspections.
3. Shift crossers from normal, non-commercial lanes to dedicated SENTRI lanes.SENTRI is program of pre-registration and
background checks for frequent crossers with the expectation of shorter lines and faster inspections
PRIMARY INSPECTION OBSERVATIONS
December 2004 through June of 2005 1228 non-SENTRI (normal) non-commercial
vehicles 789 SENTRI vehicles
PRIMARY INSPECTION OBSERVATIONS
Non-SENTRI mean = 34 seconds SENTRI mean = 15 seconds
Of non-SENTRI inspections, 45% lasted 20 seconds or less.
21% of non-SENTRI inspections were “high-attention” inspections (at least one compartment was opened)
5% of SENTRI inspections were “high attention”
Low Attention Normal (non-SENTRI)
High Attention SENTRI
High Attention Normal (non-SENTRI)
High Attention SENTRI
Sample Size 972 746 256 44Median, s 20 11 66 33Mean, s 24 14 70 41
Primary Inspection Observations
Capacity and Demand:Average inspection times obtained from the observations can be converted to throughput rates and compared to demand figures.
Inspection Time (sec)
Maximum Throughput
(Veh/hr)
Off Peak Hour
[3-4 am]
SENTRI 3 15 720 4.7 142
NORMAL (Non-SENTRI, non-
commercial)
NORMAL (Non-SENTRI, non-
commercial)
NORMAL (Non-SENTRI, non-
commercial)
Type of Border Crosser
Number of Lanes
Demand
Peak Hour [3-
4 pm]Paso del Norte Bridge
9 34 952 31 938Bridge of the Americas
14 34 1480 55 1650Ysleta
12 34 1270 25 756
Option #1: More high attention inspections
Current mean=34 seconds High attention mean=70 seconds Capacity will be exceeded In accord with anecdotal experiences post-9/11
Relative Frequency Histogram
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
110
120
130
140
150
160
170
180
190
200
210
220
230
240
Inspection Time (sec)
Rela
tive F
req
uen
cy (
%) Regular
InspectionsPrimary Inspections Truncates at 63 sec
Primary Inspections Truncated at 90 sec
Mean 34 30 32Median 23 23 23Mode 18 63 18Standard Deviation 31 19 245th Percentile 10 10 1095th Percentile 88 63 88% Referred to Secondary 2 13-15 5-7
Option #2: Large variation in primary inspection times for non-SENTRI crossers was observed, 1-249 sec: What if we truncated at 90 or 63 seconds and send more to secondary?
Option #2: Truncate Primary Inspections
Truncating at 63 sec allows for 35% high attention inspections rather than 21% if mean of 34 sec is maintained
Truncated high-attention mean is 51 sec 7 times more secondary inspections
– Space may be there but staffing is less clear
Option #3: Expanding SENTRI-Shifting crossers to the SENTRI program allows more time for inspecting the remaining non-SENTRI crossers.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Peak Hour SENTRI Crossers
TN
Option #3: Expand SENTRI
Doubling or tripling the program is necessary to allow for substantial increases in the number of “high attention” inspections
Level of overcapacity required to permit longer inspection times.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 1.25 1.5 1.75 2 2.25 2.5 2.75
Fractional Capacity at Peak Hour
Av
era
ge
In
sp
ec
tio
n T
ime
in
No
n-
SE
NT
RI
La
ne
, s
25% Shifted to SENTRI
50% Shifted to SENTRI
Current
Current Conditions
Inspection time of 70
Inspection time of 51
Policy Implications
About 60% of crossers cross weekly or more frequently (Howard 2005)
We would need almost all of these people enrolled in SENTRI to allow “high attention” inspections for most non-SENTRI crossers
Not likely at $400/year
CONCLUSIONS
Current inspections appear to be largely cursory, providing little time for a large fraction of entering vehicles.
No single alternative solves the problem Alternatives can be implemented incrementally and
should incrementally improve the situation in primary.– Divert more problematic cases to secondary inspections – Increasing the use of the SENTRI program.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE WORK
Impact on secondary not considered Queue formation and dissipation not
considered – Capacity assuming queue is present
Impact on region-wide traffic flows not investigated
Novel technologies may provide other alternatives to consider
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
NSF supplemental funding for undergraduate research
Yi-Chang Chiu, Thomas Fullerton, Cheryl Howard, and Jorge Villalobos shared data and assisted with the study