January 24 is the anniversary of the Domodedovo Airport bombing that claimed the lives of 37 people. This tragic event made the authorities change their general approach towards security in airports as well as to look into the efficiency of budgetary fund using in the sphere of transport security. However, as the member of Federal Council of Ingushetia, Mukharbek Didigov stressed, the practice of an excessively thorough examination of all passengers from the North Caucasus is quite disturbing. Not only does it cause irritation and discontent form the part of the passengers, but also suggests that Moscow airport police officers doubt the competence of their Caucasian colleagues. The passengers have to go through examination twice – in Caucasian airports and in Moscow, and it doesn’t seem to be an efficient use of budget funds.
According to the deputy director of ‘Rosaviation’ Nikolai Zakhryapin the tack of ensuring safety on the most sensitive directions is laborious and demands a lot of time and money as new up-to-date equipment has to be designed and deployed in all airports. This equipment should be able to detect explosives as well as all other forbidden items.
‘Rosaviation’ experts also propose to check the security measures on the airport facilities’ perimeter and to analyze most plausible scenarios of illegal acts. However, the legal base for all these actions used to be insufficient, and that is why the new ‘transport security’ law is so important.
Together with the Transportation Ministry the ‘Rosaviation’ experts determined the necessary number of categories of civil aviation facilities – here are four of them. In total, there are 283 airports in Russia, 32 belong to the first, most important, category, 28 – to the second, 52 to the third and 171 to the forth. Each category has its own security regulations. Budgetary funds are already allocated for 43 state airports.
The new law on transport security considerably raises the safety standards for all four categories, so the field of work is enormous.
According to Pavel Shmelev, deputy director of the security department of the Russian Railroads company, the management of Russia railway stations in an integral part of Russian railway system. There are 368 major railway hubs in Russia. To ensure security there the state allocated sums for creation of passenger and baggage examination zones in 28 of the railway hubs. The Russian Railroads company is creating such zones on high-speed train stations in Tver’, Vyborg, Petersburg and Moscow as well as in NCFD and the Southern Federal District.
All the necessary equipment for baggage and passenger monitoring is already shipped to the sites. The company plans to conduct 100% examinations of passengers on the stations involved. The examination zones will include from 2 to 4 examination stations. In the NCFD and SFD the examination will be selective. All works are coordinated with the government. On those stations where the establishment of a special zone within the station’s territory is impossible, special pavilions will be constructed. On the Kazan station in Moscow a special video tracking system will also be deployed. More than 170 video-cameras will be interconnected with 90 servers. This system will allow railway station’s security officers to identify those who are being wanted by the police among the passengers. All works are being conducted by tender winners. The Russian railroads management has already completed the upgrades on the Moscow station in Petersburg and Petersburg station in Moscow.
From now on more efficient technologies are being used for passenger and baggage examination to ensure the safety of railway travel. These two stations will allow the Russian Railroads company to gain experience and polish our new methods. An average examination station will have stationary equipment, metal detectors, video cameras, CATscans, equipment for explosive substances detection, etc. Over 1.5 million of passengers have already passed through these systems. As the result, 200 units of firearms and more than 100 units of cold weapons were detected. There are certain regulations as to what can be transported via railroads and what is banned. More than 90,000 units of baggage were also checked on these two ‘pilot’ stations. The systems turned out to be most efficient for weapons detection. In general, 2 units of weapons are being detected per train. One examination station’s pick workload is 1,400 passengers per two trains. If two stations are operating in one zone, the lines are not longer than 6 or 7 persons. One person with two units of baggage takes 13 seconds to check.
By VK
