SECURITY
Gone to the dogs W
hile not exactly an every day sight at airports, it is not unusual to see customs officers using ‘sniffer dogs’ to search people’s luggage for illegal drugs.
Indeed, aided by a superb sense of smell, ‘man’s best friend’
has been helping law enforcement agencies tackle crime for over 100 years. So it should as no surprise to anyone to learn that a growing number
of security experts from across the world believe that dogs have a key future role to play in helping screen cargo shipments at airports. One of them is Jack Boisen – head of security for the International
Air Cargo Forum, the world’s largest air cargo interest group, and former vice president of cargo at Continental Airlines – who has been a vocal advocate of canine inspection for the screening of cargo loaded into passenger aircraft for years. He has even championed the use of dogs in dialogue with the US authorities
about the evolution of air cargo security in North America, stressing the high efficiency of canine inspection of cargo as well as its cost-effectiveness. “Technology-based solutions that are out there today cost
significant amounts of money, which add up to a considerable expense for an airline that has to secure multiple stations,” he notes. “Canines cost a fraction of that, and they are very effective.” His views are certainly shared by European security company, ICTS
Europe, which relies on teams of highly trained dogs to sniff air samples taken from a cargo consignment as part of its RASCargO service. Since its 2004 launch in the UK and France by ICTS Europe
subsidiary DiagNose, RASCargO has been used to screen over 100,000 trucks and pallets and more than 1.5 million tonnes of cargo at ten major European airports that include Paris CDG, London Heathrow and Amsterdam Schiphol.
Ian Putzger discovers more about the use of canines to security screen cargo shipments that cannot be X-rayed or hand searched.
In fact such has been the success of the service that the European
Union recently passed new legislation that endorses the use of ‘explosive detection dogs’ for cargo screening. So how does RASCargO work? Air samples are taken by inserting a
specially designed filter into a container, wrapped pallet or truck. A process that can happen anywhere on airport, depending on the local operational needs. Samples are then taken to the analysis room, usually a cabin
measuring 12m by 18m with regulated environmental conditions, where a team of two highly trained dogs sniff the filters one by one. The dogs are trained to detect minute traces of explosive vapour and indicate a positive detection by sitting down. Ido Yitzhaki, vice president of marketing of DiagNose, which
developed and markets the system, emphasises that there are no physical restrictions on the size of a cargo unit and that samples can be taken without having to open or move it. “Many of our customers are using the RASCargO system as a good
solution for loose cargo screening. The customer simply places an empty container inside the warehouse. The loose cargo is stored inside this container and an air sample is taken by a RASCargO mobile sampling team,” he adds. The RASCargO approach has a high detection rate and a low false
alarm rate of 1% to 2%. A basic unit running eight hours a day can screen 300 containers or trucks. A full-scale unit operating 24 hours with ten dogs can reach an estimated annual throughput of 750,000 tonnes. Jean-Cyril Spinetta, chief executive of Air France-KLM, is a fan of the
canine approach. “The introduction of the RASCargO system in G1XL (the Air France cargo hub at CDG) makes this cargo terminal the most secure in the world,” he declared after a visit to the unit.
AW AIRPORT WORLD/AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2010 69
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