Title: Examining Benefits of Automation in Ninoy Aquino International Airport X-ray

Screening

Summary

The aim of airport security screenings is to prevent dangerous goods from entering aircraft
and to ensure that all flights reach their destinations safely. Therefore, all passengers must
step through the metal detector before entering the gate room, and all hand luggage and
checked baggage are screened using an X-ray machine. The security officer monitors the
scanning of baggage which the mainly responsible for making the decision to open a bag, but
automation also has a role to play. If a device or an officer detects illegal items or an
unidentifiable material in the scanner picture, the bag will be opened. Securing the
international aviation industry proves to be a losing challenge that needs a tremendous
amount of financial and human capital. Without the adequate security measures in place, the
aviation industry proves to be a lucrative and easily access opportunity for terrorist
organizations and adversaries. Bomb attacks on civil aviation make the detection of
improvised explosive devices and explosives in passenger luggage a major concern.
(Hättenschwiler et al., 2018). Most airport used an explosive detection system for cabin
baggage screening (EDSCB) and Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) are
upgrading the security equipment and facility inside the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
With this upgrade, all x-ray machines in NAIA were replace by dual view x-ray machines as
compliance with international aviation standards. The MIAA started the replacement and
upgrade since 2018 and projected to finish the replacement in 2022. As additional security
measures with the help of experienced personnel in bomb detection, the EDSCB will increase
the detection of explosive devices in passenger’s baggage. The EDSCB with automatic
decision-making has the ability to significantly improve the detection of explosives. This
paper will discuss the possible benefit of EDSCB when use by the airport security personnel
and possibility used by NAIA as diagnostic aid in detecting explosives.

Introduction

From the point of view of the passenger, the X-ray scanner looks like a box tunnel and a
conveyor belt that passes the luggage through the tunnel. Within the box, the baggage is
scanned with X-rays: scanning is made possible by the fact that X-rays penetrate various
substances to a different extent. In order to deter terrorist attacks and other acts of unlawful
interference, passengers and their belongings must be checked before they are able to access
the protected areas of airports and board the aircraft. Screeners carefully inspect X-ray
images of cabin luggage for prohibited objects such as guns, knives and improvised explosive
devices (IEDs) as well as other items such as self-defense gas sprays or Tasers (Huegli et al.,
2020). A certain percentage of baggage must be screened at random to improve security
measures in the airport vicinity. Randomized inspections are chosen on the basis of
automation, so that even the security officer will not know whose luggage will be searched.
The challenges of conducting visual searches in X-ray baggage screening include low target
incidence, variance in target visibility, the identification for an uncertain target and the
potential existence of several targets. If aviation security agencies intend to publicly disclose
details on their technology adoption strategies, this will encourage attackers to change their
attack plans in order to bypass the technology. On the contrary, this could prove to prevent
adversaries from attacking, considering the increased chance of detection. Similarly, if the
agencies keep their technology adoption plans confidential, the attackers will not have the
proper information to plan an attack that could support the credibility and efficiency of the
overall security systems (Hunt et al., 2020). Bare explosives are also a problem in cabin
baggage screening, because they may be integrated with other IED components after passing
the airport security checkpoint. Detecting bare explosives can be a challenge even for well-
trained screeners, since they often look like a harmless organic mass. It is a challenge to
researcher to know the exact system of the dual x-ray machines use by NAIA and I
understand that this certain information will not be publicly open for the reliability of the
machines. However, the EDSCB could potentially increase the explosive detectability rate of
NAIA, in the study conducted by Adrian Schwaninger shows that the regulators and airport
operators are currently considering two EDSCB implementation scenarios with varying
degrees of automation and human-machine feature allocation: on-screen alarm resolution
(OSAR) and automatic decision-making. On the other hand, the investigation conducted by
Nicole Hättenschwiler show that for the EDSCB, the success of OSAR and the automatic
decision-making scenario essentially depends on the ability of the EDSCB monitors to clear
the alarms (in the OSAR scenario) and to identify explosives missed by the EDSCB (in both
scenarios). With Automation as Diagnostic Aid (OSAR), human-machine hit rates for bare
explosives were close to baseline without automation. This is impressive as it is considered
that the EDSCB has a hit rate of 88% for explosives for OSAR. In other words, the use of
automation as a diagnostic aid, which means that EDSCB alerts must be resolved by
screeners, significantly reduces or even eliminates the advantages of EDSCB for the
detection of bare explosives. The automated decision showed a higher false alarm rate, as
anticipated. Assuming that the performance of the screener remains unaffected by the
implementation of an automatic decision by applying different hit and false alarm rates to
those evaluated in the study conducted by Hättenschwiler, the system hit and false alarm rates
can be explicitly manipulated by the choice of the EDSCB computer and the machine settings
(machinery criterion) for the performance of the screener. It is important to note that with the
EDSCB threshold settings used in our experiments, humans (screeners) still have an
important role to play. They visually inspect all X-ray images that are not alarmed by the
EDSCB. This will be 96 percent of all Xray images in an operating environment (as the
EDSCB alarms only on 4 percent of all bags).

Reaction

It will be beneficial to regulatory body and airport authorities if they decided in replicating
the experiment 1 and experiment 2 conducted by Nicole Hättenschwiler to further investigate
the capability of airport screeners in detecting if the baggage has a threat material like guns,
knives, explosives, IEDs, and etc. This could be references to the aviation security sector if
they need to re-train the airport screeners as continuous improvement in training of aviation
security personnel and security sector can explore whether specific training is needed to
familiarized the security screeners with the automation aid that can help them in the mental
model of automation capabilities. Such mental models may be critical for the efficient use of
automation help. These mental models may also be helped by artificially raising the
prevalence of IEDs and explosives in action that communicate with EDSCB in a practical
manner by performing covert experiments and using threat picture simulations more
frequently. Future studies should also use true EDSCB false alarms from the operating
environment, as screeners can learn how to correct those types of false alarms (e.g. those
caused by certain types of harmless items). X-ray baggage screening are important for
selecting the required level of automation, such as imperfect automation efficiency, the
prominence of false alarms due to low target prevalence, and the potentially serious
consequences associated with misses. Future research in different fields may provide a more
thorough understanding of the optimal degree of automation based on human and machine
performance at different stages of information processing. This could be interesting study if
the aviation security section conducted the same experiment in the dual view x-ray machines
because the study conducted by Nicole Hättenschwiler is limited only for single view x-ray
machines.
Conclusion

Exploring the advantages of automation for airport security screening of cabin baggage using
two stages of automation that must addressed by regulators and airport operators in
improving the capability of the airport screeners and the reliability of the machines in
detecting the explosives and other object that can be possible threat in boarding the airplane.
If the aviation security sector will conduct the experiment in NAIA it possibly to find that the
EDSCB can enhances the efficiency of the human-machine system for detecting bare
explosives. When the aviation security sector establishes the conduct of the study and
experiment, they can be able to compare the two stages of automation they can finally found
the similar results if they used the dual view x-ray machines that the human-machine system
output using automatic decision-making proved to be superior to automation as a diagnostic
aid in the security screener in passenger baggage and luggage. The EDSCB with automatic
decision-making has the ability to significantly improve the detection of explosives, but at the
cost of some performance – depending on the EDS algorithm setting criterion. EDSCB as a
diagnostic aid is false-alarm prone and results in a cry wolf effect with seasoned monitors
ignoring system warnings.
List of Citations and Sources;

Astley, S.M., 2004. Computer-based detection and prompting of mammographic

abnormalities. BJR (Br. J. Radiol.) 77. https://doi.org/10.1259/bjr/30116822.

Baeriswyl, S., Krause, A., Schwaninger, A., 2016. Emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction
in airport security officers - work-family conflict mediator in the job demands-
resources model. Front. Psychol. 7, 1–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg. 2016.00663.

von Bastian, C.C., Schwaninger, A., Michel, S., 2009. The impact of color composition on X-
ray image interpretation in aviation security screening. In: Proceedings of the 43rd
IEEE International Carnahan Conference on Security Technology, Zurich Switzerland,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/CCST.2009.5335539. October 5–8, 2009.

Do you know how the X-ray device at airport security screening works? | Finavia
https://www.finavia.fi/en/newsroom/2018/do-you-know-how-x-ray-device-airport-
security-screening-works

Hättenschwiler, N., Sterchi, Y., Mendes, M., & Schwaninger, A. (2018). Automation in
airport security X-ray screening of cabin baggage: Examining benefits and possible
implementations of automated explosives detection. Applied Ergonomics, 72(December
2016), 58–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2018.05.003

Huegli, D., Merks, S., & Schwaninger, A. (2020). Automation reliability, human–machine
system performance, and operator compliance: A study with airport security screeners
supported by automated explosives detection systems for cabin baggage screening.
Applied Ergonomics, 86(March), 103094. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2020.103094

Hunt, K., Agarwal, P., & Zhuang, J. (2020). Technology Adoption for Airport Security:
Modeling Public Disclosure and Secrecy in an Attacker-defender Game. Reliability
Engineering & System Safety, 107355. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2020.107355