Article ID: | iaor2005668 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 31 |
Issue: | 10 |
Start Page Number: | 1753 |
End Page Number: | 1767 |
Publication Date: | Sep 2004 |
Journal: | Computers and Operations Research |
Authors: | Jacobson Sheldon H., Kobza John E., Candalino Thomas J. |
Keywords: | search, testing, heuristics, optimization: simulated annealing |
Terrorist activities are a critical threat to domestic aviation security. Current aviation security models created to address this threat are descriptive rather than prescriptive; they evaluate a given baggage screening strategy rather than identify optimal baggage screening strategies. Moreover, these models only incorporate costs associated with purchasing and operating baggage screening security devices. This research introduces a comprehensive cost function that not only includes direct costs associated with the purchase and operation of baggage screening security devices, but also includes indirect costs associated with device errors. A methodology is presented to determine the best selection of baggage screening security devices that minimizes the expected annual total cost of a baggage screening strategy. Computational experiments with this methodology are presented.