Towards an Aviation Security Incident Management capability in NextGen and SESAR

Abstract

This paper discusses an integrated Aviation Security Incident Management capability. One of the key issues in Aviation Security is that despite the catastrophic magnitude, incidents are rare and their precursors are hard to identify. Moreover, relevant information is held by various air transportation system stakeholders with differing information requirements.For the response to an unlawful interference there is a limited time window during which decision-makers have to identify an incident and select the respective tailored response. The success of avoiding unwanted outcomes diminishes with delays in taking the appropriate decision within this finite time window.In this paper we address the operational and technical challenges of situation management. In order to efficiently manage an aviation security incident, smart systems can provide the required technological capability. The goal of our research is to identify requirements and features of an integrated Aviation Security Incident Management capability which we see as an extension of the system-wide information management paradigm of NextGen and SESAR.This research-in-progress paper presents our conceptual approach, modelling work and experiments. The results obtained indicate that smart automation support for situation management in aviation security enhances the early identification of incidents and increases the situational awareness during the management of an incident. This allows decision-makers to select from a wider range of options, as the time-window for the deployment of responses increases.