Application of enterprise modeling and analysis to the transportation security administration's air cargo security cost estimation project

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 crystallized public awareness and concern over issues of aviation security. As the nation has brought greater levels of inspection and other security measures to bear on passengers and baggage, concerns have mounted that air cargo will become vulnerable to delivering explosive threats to aircraft. In the “9/11” bill, Congress mandated TSA to screen 50% of air cargo on passenger-carrying aircraft by February 2009 and 100% by August 2010. Therefore, TSA will eliminate all exemptions to screening cargo, resulting in an increased amount of cargo subject to mandatory screening. Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL's) Enterprise Modeling and Analysis (EMA) tool is being used to help TSA meet its air cargo screening mandates. ORNL is developing defensible cost estimates for implementing optimal screening systems at the top ten passenger airports and top five all-cargo airports. EMA is used to determine optimal screening strategies (maximum affinity, minimum cost) and to estimate life-cycle costs. This paper details the EMA framework and its integrated optimization- and lifecycle-based modeling approach. The EMA system balances security system effectiveness and costs driven by local air cargo mix, priority, volume, and packaging and consolidation configurations and infrastructure, operations, and business constraints.