The characteristics of large hub airport infrastructure is going to change significantly over the next 10 years. These changes, along with evolving terrorist threats, emerging technologies, increasing customer expectations, and economic uncertainty, raise significant implications for airport police going forward. To effectively meet these challenges, airport policing leaders must lean forward, develop new approaches to changing issues; leverage technology; and build on partnerships with allied agencies, the private sector, and educational institutions. As the infrastructure at airports changes, how will the agencies responsible for police and security services at large hub airports also need to change as a result?
Like any other international transportation hub, changes in infrastructure that are well underway at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) are indicative of true transformations in airport infrastructure throughout the United States. The LAX facility was designed and constructed in the late 1950s and is now being reimagined to accommodate operations and community expectations for the next decade, including accommodating the hosting of the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.1 This massive renovation project presents a major police and security challenge that will demand organizational changes and the use of evolving technologies.2 How will LAX, and any other airport of similar size and scope, respond to the threats and opportunities ahead?
Historical Perspective
Policing of major airports originated with security officers during and immediately following World War II. Primary functions of security staff were to focus on controlling access to airfields and adjacent critical facilities (such as aircraft manufacturing plants) often colocated at major airports.
In the late 1950s, airports undertook major modernization programs to prepare for the transition to jet airliners such as the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8. These efforts resulted in processes to cope with significant passenger growth, as well as increased awareness of ground traffic congestion and the potential for criminal activity. At this point, many airports upgraded their security officers to police officers. Airports either contracted with local law enforcement agencies or implemented a hybrid model using airport police officers for airport-specific tasks and the local agency for more serious crimes.3
The hijackings of the early 1970s resulted in an increased focus on aviation security, including the implementation of passenger screening systems. The 1980s were a period of increased training, community engagement, and interagency collaborations.4 The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, though, brought perhaps the most significant changes to airport law enforcement. These changes included increased staffing; the implementation of dedicated SWAT and K9 teams; specialized tactical equipment and vehicles; Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) participation; and increased collaboration with local, state, and federal partners. Post-9/11, significant grant funding also became available through programs such as the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI).5
The 2010s saw a continued building of resources and capabilities established in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Today, strong collaboration with both public and private sector partners, as well as a renewed focus on customer service, continue to be of critical importance. A major new challenge is the extensive construction at many major airports, which give rise to significant ground traffic congestion and security issues. Moreover, terrorist attack methodologies, including cyber, are continuing to evolve.6 This increasingly complex array of challenges will mean that policing at airports will also need to continue to evolve.
Implications on the Future of Policing
Within 10 years, airports will present significant new challenges to policing. These challenges will include significant new multimodal (including rail) infrastructure, autonomous ground vehicles, and aircraft accessing airports;7 increasing customer service expectations; regulatory mandates including the screening of all employees; crime trends; technology that can both enhance or impede law enforcement; and demands for increased efficiency.8
“Moreover, involving airport authorities early on will be critical to ensure that any required infrastructure is incorporated into construction or renovation and included in the concerned project budget.”
As a result of a highly visible presence, community engagement, and innovative application of technology, Part I crime rates continue to decrease at major airports, although they may be displaced to surrounding areas.9 However, this presents unique training challenges to ensure that officers are prepared for highly significant, infrequent events. Essentially, because of decreases in serious crime at large hub airport complexes, officers will have infrequent opportunities to use their skills in tactical deployment, complex investigations, multi-suspect arrests, and other similar situations. Mitigation of this potential degradation of critical skills will require the evaluation and implementation of evolving training technologies. This will include the use of simulation and virtual reality, which are in common use in the aviation and military domains, but are currently less common in policing.10
Moreover, airport police agencies adjacent to higher crime areas should consider exchange programs with the local police departments, where the airport officers can gain exposure to an increased operational tempo, while the officers from nearby agencies would benefit from an opportunity to gain familiarity with the airport. This would also be helpful to prepare for a major incident in which the surrounding agencies need to respond to the airport. A model for these exchange programs is the Jewish Institute for National Security of America Law Enforcement Exchange Program, “which brings American police chiefs, sheriffs, and senior federal agents to Israel for a program designed to strengthen American law enforcement counterterrorism practices by facilitating dialogue with and studying techniques used by their Israeli counterparts.”11
Exchanging officers and expertise also creates opportunities to examine and enhance organizational culture, continuous improvement, enhanced efficiency, and employee development.12 The velocity of change in policing will increase over the next 10 years, which will require law enforcement to develop proactive responses. Fortunately, an example from the airline industry can help inform possible approaches for the police. Southwest Airlines Chief Financial Officer Tammy Romo states,
We are in a challenging and highly regulated industry that is energy, capital and labor intensive. Being able to respond to forces we cannot plan starts with being prepared. The philosophy of managing in good times so that we are prepared for bad times has always served us well. Even in the wake of 9/11, we managed to make a profit in the fourth quarter of 2001. And, unlike many of our competitors, we did so without laying off employees or cutting their pay.13
These implications can help us imagine the airport police agency in the future, and how it will meet the challenges of policing major airports in 2031.
The Future – 2031
As police officers prepare to safeguard airports in 2031, they will face significant challenges and opportunities. These are best illustrated by way of a scenario that considers both officers and passengers. In 2031, passengers arrive at the remote parking and station facilities along an Automated People Mover (APM) light rail system through either regional rail or fully automated ground and air vehicles. Once in the main campus, passengers enter stations and terminals that are patrolled by police/customer service robots that provide surveillance, respond to questions, and provide information using artificial intelligence. These robots can even take simple crime and lost property reports. Passengers drop their baggage at an automated bag check station and make their way through a fully automated and unstaffed Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening checkpoint.
Like their automated counterparts elsewhere in the terminal, artificially intelligent robots equipped with facial recognition greet travelers entering the screening process. Once they have passed through security and the jetway, people will board the latest advancement in air travel, the Semi-Autonomous Airliner. Travelers will already know a lot about their new jet, since it had been under research for at least 10 years and was introduced at the 2024 Paris Airshow. Using technology that has long been used by the military, these airplanes are capable of autonomous flight with oversight from ground-based operators.14
From the public safety perspective, though, the police fear the highly automated systems integral to the new facilities will create an environment that is susceptible to overreliance on technology by both passengers and police officers. As a result, police officers have to be concerned with the resultant operational impacts in the event of individual or cascading system failures at any point in the technological chain. Cyberthreats will be a significant concern, as will the elimination of human interaction between passengers and airport employees. Airport police executives might look back 10 years to the planning that was in place (or not) and wonder if their counterparts in the past ever really anticipated the realities they now face.
Recommendations
Imagining the airport police agency of 2031 is the first step to developing action today. To help create a future airport experience that benefits both travelers and those who protect them, a foundation for change needs to be created today. Airport leaders should consider most or all of the following recommendations to prepare for the major changes at airports, which will primarily be large-scale, multifaceted, high-tech transportation centers in the very near future.
A particularly useful tool to determine the implications on the future of policing is “brainwriting,” a technique used in group settings so planners can more fully participate in an exploration of ideas and issues they may encounter in the future.15 This process was used by a panel of experts studying the future of hub airport policing in early 2018, leading to the development of multiple recommendations.
Establish a Futures Working Group
Engage in preparing airport law enforcement to police airports in 2031, by establishing a Futures Working Group, consisting of senior airport police, allied agency, airport, and air carrier representatives. Building on existing relationships, the Futures Working Group would be separate from existing groups of similar composition whose primary focus is operational planning. The focus of the group should be “to sequence efforts to maximize impact and synergy while minimizing chaos, complexity, and risk.”16
Implement Emerging Technologies
There are a number of advancements on the horizon that can either be an impediment or an asset to airport safety. Through identifying; evaluating; and in some cases, implementing them, airport law enforcement will be better prepared to meet the challenges of 2031 and beyond. Among those technologies are autonomous vehicles, robotics, and unmanned aerial vehicles:
- To address the challenges and opportunities raised by autonomous vehicles, airport police should partner with the major manufacturers and operators of this technology to provide operations centers, as well as field officers, and the ability to track and safely immobilize these vehicles, as well communicate with their occupants.17
- In partnership with the airport’s customer experience component, airport police should deploy robots in public areas to provide an additional police presence. The highly visible robots will conduct surveillance, provide information, and enable passengers to immediately summon a police officer.18
- Airport police should leverage the FirstNet system to equip each officer with a rugged smartphone that provides push-to-talk capability; MDT, CAD, and RMS functionality; database access; and full access to the airports CCTV system.19
- Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) should be deployed to enhance security on the APM light rail system; the airfield perimeter; parking lots; and the areas where attacks against aircraft using standoff weapons could originate, such as the shoreline and coastal waters.20
All of these technologies raise significant implications as to costs, training, and changes in business processes, both internally to the airport police agency and externally with allied agency partners and the airport operator.21 Due to the complexity of these systems and the expertise of vendors, any procurement should include a training component. Moreover, airport police agencies should explore cost-sharing and funding alternatives for these emerging technologies. Funding alternatives may include passenger facility charges, grants from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Improvement Program, and public-private partnerships.22
Embrace Data-Driven Policing
Data-driven policing supports a proactive approach to ensuring a safe and secure airport through predicting occurrences of criminal activity. Using data-driven policing, officers will be deployed in real time to hot spots to prevent and interdict criminal activity, based on crime and activity data and intelligence.23 As an example of effective data-driven policing, data and predictions generated by a gunshot detection system contributed to a 48 percent decrease in shootings in Cincinnati, Ohio, through March 2018.24
Partner with a University Research Center
While a framework for policing major hub airports in 2031 has been touched upon herein, new and unanticipated technologies and associated ramifications will continue to evolve. One way for police organizations to get ahead of these changes is to partner with a local university research center to develop and implement simulation and virtual reality training to be provided on a frequent basis.
A relationship model—a durable, cooperative model that enables companies to partner with academia in a fashion that allows them to stay continuously connected to early stage research and to accelerate the translation of that research into new products that drive economic growth.25
In the Los Angeles area, for example, the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technology (ICT) “brings film and game industry artists together with computer and social scientists to study and develop immersive media for military training, health therapies, science education, and more.”26 These types of centers and programs could provide similar immersive opportunities for policing.
Implement the Geographic Policing Model
Notwithstanding advancements in airport infrastructure and technology, customer service expectations will continue to grow. To quote a 2010 study conducted by JD Power and Associates, a well-known U.S. customer satisfaction/market research firm, “Happy passengers are super spenders in the terminals.”27 Implementation of the geographic policing model can improve the level of customer engagement. A subset of community-oriented policing, geographic policing is a spatially specific, proactive, decentralized approach designed to reduce crime, disorder, and fear of crime. According to The Journal of Experimental Criminology, “Community-oriented policing strategies have positive effects on citizen satisfaction, perceptions of disorder, and police legitimacy, but limited effects on crime and fear of crime.”28 This model involves the presence of the same officer in the same geographic area on a long-term basis, so that citizens develop trust enhancing cooperation with police officers.29
Conclusion
Large hub airport infrastructure is undergoing massive transformations today, and these airports will become dramatically different, high-tech transportation facilities around the world within 10 years. Implementation of these recommendations will position airports and their police agencies to address the challenges and opportunities arising during and after this transformation.
A cornerstone of this way forward is the application of the geographic policing model to allow the operational challenges of policing a major hub airport in 2031 to be met with minimal increases in sworn staff. However, the technology components of enhanced CCTV coverage, IP-based data and voice communications, and autonomous vehicle monitoring and control will result in significant capital outlays and ongoing operational costs. Nevertheless, these costs can be mitigated by leveraging planned systems, such as FirstNet; cost sharing; grants; and user fees. Moreover, involving airport authorities early on will be critical to ensure that any required infrastructure is incorporated into construction or renovation and included in the concerned project budget.
To leverage police officer staffing and state-of-the-art technology systems to support the operational components of futuristic airports, it behooves police leaders today to be critical players in the planning, designing, and implementation of the entire structures they protect. Let’s get started!
Notes:
1Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), “Landside Access Modernization Program,” 2017.
2National Safe Skies Alliance, Recommended Security Guidelines for Airport Planning, Design, and Construction (2017).
3LAWA, “APD History.”
4George Larson, “Moments and Milestones: Perfecting the People Filter,” Air & Space (September 2010).
5Byran Gardiner, “Off With Your Shoes—A Brief History of Airport Security,” WIRED Magazine (June 2013); Office of the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, Report of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Airport Security—LAX (2011).
6James Berman, “Stop Preparing for the Last War: Arm Yourself for the New One,” Huffington Post, January 17, 2013.
7Tracy Lien, “Uber Says It Will Bring Its Flying Taxis to Los Angeles in 2020,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 2017.
8Ronnie Garrett, “Miami Int’l Adds New Layers to Employee Screening Checkpoint,” Airport Improvement (July–August 2017); Criminal Justice Information Services Division, Crime in the United States 2016 (Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016), table 2; Kimberly Amadeo, “History of Recessions in the United States,” The Balance, updated December 17, 2020.
9Los Angeles Airport Police, “LAX Crime Statistics for 2017,” Crime Analysis Detail, 2018.
10Charlie Fink, “VR Training Next Generation of Workers,” Forbes, October 30, 2017.
11Jewish Institute for National Security of America, “Top Law Enforcement Officials Return from Israel,” news release, August 4, 2011.
12Jon Katzenbach, Carolin Oelschlegel, and James Thomas, “10 Principles of Organizational Culture,” Strategy+Business 82 (Spring 2016).
13Jeff Thomson, “Company Culture Soars at Southwest Airlines,” Forbes, December 18, 2018.
14Zach Wichter, “Are You Ready to Fly Without a Human Pilot?” New York Times, July 16, 2018.
15Sandy Boyd, Data Collection for Futures Research (Sacramento, CA: California Commission on POST, 2018).
16Ann Latham, “The Importance of Strategic Focus,” Forbes, November 12, 2017.
17Thomas J. Cowper and Bernard H. Levin, “Autonomous Vehicles: How Will They Challenge Law Enforcement?” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, February 13, 2018.
18Cedric Curtis, “Airport Robots Are Already a Reality,” Airport Improvement (January–February 2015).
19National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “Public Safety.”
20John Wallace, “Integrating Unmanned Aircraft Systems into Modern Policing in an Urban Environment” (master’s thesis, Monterey, CA: Naval Post Graduate School, 2012).
21Dorothy Leonard-Barton and William A. Kraus, “Implementing New Technology,” Harvard Business Review (November 1985).
22Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), “Passenger Facility Charge Program”; FAA, “Airport Improvement Program”; Michael Della Rocca, “The Rising Advantage of Public-Private Partnerships,” McKinsey & Company, July 19, 2017.
23Caroline Cournoyer, “Data-Driven Policing,” Governing, May 2011.
24Tom McKee, “Shootings Down Nearly 50 Percent in Cincinnati This Year, Police Say,” WCPO, March 29, 2018.
25Kenneth R. Lutchen, “Why Companies and Universities Should Forge Long-Term Collaborations,” Harvard Business Review, January 24, 2018.
26Institute for Creative Technologies, “ICT Overview.”
27Joanne Paternoster, “Great Expectations,” Airport World 4 (2012).
28Charlotte Gill et al., “Community-Oriented Policing to Reduce Crime, Disorder and Fear and Increase Satisfaction and Legitimacy among Citizens: A Systematic Review,” Journal of Experimental Criminology 10 (2014): 399–428.
29W. Michael Phibbs, “Should Sector Policing Be in Your Organization’s Future?” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, April 1, 2010.
Please cite as
Greg Staar, “The Future of Policing Large Hub Airports,” Police Chief Online, February 26, 2021.
