4.4 - Support Transit Security and Coordination DFD

The processes in this DFD make up the Support Transit Security and Coordination facility within the Manage Transit function. These processes enable incidents that occur either on-board transit vehicles or in other parts of the transit network to be reported and actions coordinated with the emergency services. These processes manage the actions that are taken when an emergency occurs on-board a transit vehicle (coordinated with DFD 5.1.7) or within a transit facility, modal interchange facility, or transit depot. Notification of an emergency may come from travelers via such things as panic buttons, from a transit vehicle operator, or from surveillance equipment located at transit stops and other parts of the transit network. The processes work to pre-defined plans of action for each type of emergency situation and communicate with the Manage Emergency Services function (see DFD 5) for coordination of emergency service activities and multiple agency responses to incidents. The processes also manage transit security such as video/audio surveillance and sensor management for threat information, authenticating the transit vehicle operator to the vehicle, and remote disabling of a vehicle during an incident, as well as disaster and evacuation planning and support for Emergency Management and wide area alerts displayed in the transit network. The processes also communicate with the transit operations personnel to both gain approval for and keep informed of, the actions being taken and for actual input of actions if none are defined. Automatic output of information about emergencies to the media is also provided.

The key points about the facility are as follows:

Transit operations personnel can monitor and respond to incidents and security issues detected in the transit system;
Details of incidents and security threats are sent to the Manage Emergency Services function for a response;
Transit operations personnel can define responses to incidents and threats and the way activities are coordinated;
Incidents may be reported by transit vehicle operators and travelers, or detected by sensors in the transit system;
Information about incidents is automatically passed to the media;
Threat sensors (e.g., thermal, acoustic, radiological, chemical), object, motion and intrusion detection sensors are used to detect threats to transportation infrastructure;
Sensors are also used to monitor the condition of transit infrastructure (which is represented by the Security Monitoring Subsystem, SMS);
Video and/or audio surveillance is performed on-board a transit vehicle (coordinated with DFD 5.1.7), or via the RTS or SMS which may include transit facilities and infrastructure.

There are four processes and one DFD that comprise this DFD:
(a) Provide Transit Security and Emergency Management (4.4.1)
(b) Coordinate Multiple Agency Responses to Transit Incidents (4.4.2)
(c) Generate Responses for Transit Incidents (4.4.3)
(d) Provide Transit Operations Personnel Security Interface (4.4.4)

The incident, emergency, and threat data obtained by process (a) is passed to process (b). This is responsible for coordinating activities with the emergency services and uses a pre-planned sequence of activities prepared by the transit operations personnel. If there are no pre-planned activities to suit a particular incident or emergency, the transit operations personnel will be prompted to provide the activities in real time. Process (a) also coordinates disaster and evacuation planning and support with processes in the Manage Emergency function. These processes may be implemented as a single coordinated group. For some implementations, process (c) may be omitted so that the transit operations personnel must always actively participate in the response to incidents, emergencies, and threats.

DFD: 4.4 - Support Transit Security and Coordination

Parent DFD: 4 - Manage Transit

PSpecs in this DFD: