External and internal influences on the security control process at airports

In past years, a lot of research has been done in the field of airport security control. Mostly, researchers that focused on human factor issues looked very closely at the x-ray screening process or at covert testing. However, it has to be taken into account that security control is typically integrated in a competitive, market-oriented environment. Thus, facilitation aspects, such as the maximal capacity (also known as throughput) of a security control line, clearly reflect one important key performance index. In a series of studies, the impact of external factors, for instance seasonal variability of temperature or number of manual baggage inspections, as well as the impact of internal factors, such as the allocation of tasks within security control crew members, were measured. The scenarios with varied internal factors consisted of different manipulations in the work process without changing given security rules, protocols or changes in infrastructure. For example, the Security Officer helping passengers preparing their bags at the roller table has been taken away from this position and assigned as second person for baggage inspection. Implications of these scenarios on measures of efficiency, such as throughput, as well as on subjective measures, such as ratings of workload and stress, have been assessed. Results show that external factors correlate with throughput remarkably and that even slight changes in the process can have a significant impact on the mentioned domains. Experiences made are discussed in order to provide suggestions of useful and feasible optimizations of the security control process.