Tag Archives: transportation security

Transportation Resilience

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Revised on: 2015-11-10

There hasn’t been a proper literature review on my blog for a while, but this post will put it right again, hopefully. Moreover, there hasn’t been a post on transportation for a while either, and this post will put that right, too.  The other day I came across Transportation security and the role of resilience: A foundation for operational metrics, a recent article by Andrew Cox, Fynnwin Prager and Adam Rose that presents a framework for evaluating transportation resilience, including the important role of perceptions in potentially amplifying security risks. With transportation being a major part of any supply chain this article also presents a framework for evaluating supply chain security and resilience. Based on the July 2005 terrorist attacks in London this paper not only develops a predictive resilience measures but also describes various strategies at the macro, micro and meso level.

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Book Review: Managing Risk and Security

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Revised on: 2015-09-10

One of my readers suggested this book to me via  a comment on my supply chain literature list pages, so I decided to find a copy for a proper review. Stephan M Wagner and Christoph Bode are renown authorities within supply chain risk research and as editors for Managing Risk and Security they have come up with a book that focuses specifically on security risks, as seen from the perspective of logistics service providers. And indeed, it was a suggestion well worth investigating, as supply chain security is something that every supply chain manager needs to take seriously.

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Book Review: Transportation Security

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Revised on: 2011-06-13

Instead of Transportation Systems Security, which I reviewed in an earlier post, I should have settled for this book, I realize that now. Transportation Security by Clifford Bragdon has all the stuff that I was looking for in Transportation Systems Security. Where that book fails, this book succeeds. Why? Because this book, unlike  the other mentioned, gives a holistic view of our world’s transportation security processes and operations, in all modes. Although at times heavily US and homeland security oriented, this book still manages to capture me, the international audience, to the full. As editor, Clifford Bragdon has managed to put together an excellent book and I can only commend him on his achievement.

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Book Review: Transportation Systems Security

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Revised on: 2015-09-09

This book, Transportation Systems Security by by Allan McDougall and Robert Radvanovsky is not what I thought it would be, but it’s not the books fault, I have to admit that much. It’s the classic misunderstanding of the difference of the terms “safety” and “security”. In English, these terms are distinctively different, in my language, Norwegian, there is only one word, “sikkerhet”, and sometimes this can be very confusing. So, what I thought was “safety” (which was what I was looking for) was in fact “security” (which was what I was NOT looking for). Nonetheless, personal disappointments aside, this book has some valid and interesting points, primarily in the introductory and theoretical parts in the beginning.

The strong side

The best chapter of the book, as far as I am concerned, is chapter 2: The Transportation System Topography, building the theoretical base for most of the book. The authors demonstrate a solid knowledge and understanding and manage to convey it in a clear and precise manner.

The weak side

The front cover gives the impression that this book deals with all transportation modes, or at least with air, sea and rail. It does not. And it is not so hands-on as I thought it would be. At times it seems to be  just meandering along without getting anywhere. I can understand that there is a lot of ground to cover, but do you really have to cover it all?

Conclusion

It is not a NO-buy, but also not a YES-buy, rather a MAYBE-buy. If you’re looking for a book on transportation vulnerability or transportation risks, this is probably not the book for you. However, if you are a transportation systems manager who wants to secure your transportation system against malicious attacks, yes, this book could be very helpful, albeit it will probably not be the one you will be using as a reference more than a few times.

Reference

McDougall A., & Radvanovsky, R. (2008) Transportation Systems Security. Boca Raton: Taylor and Francis

Author links

amazon.com

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