Urban Commerce and Security Study (U-CASS)

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Urban Commerce and Security Study (U-CASS)

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Problem Statement

• Problem There is often a perceived conflict
  between freedom of economic activity and the need
  for increased security. Nowhere is this more
  apparent than in urban areas such as Lower
  Manhattan
• Conflicting goals
• Enhance economic activity
• Prevent terrorist attacks
• But, are they always
• conflicting?

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Problem Statement

• Related problem arises in much more general
  settings involving security.
• Example
• Crime outside Manhattan
• hotel
• Police close off several-square-
• block area around hotel
• Severe impact on business at
• nearby shops and restaurants

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Problem Statement

• Related problem arises in much more general
  settings involving security.
• Example
• Gas smell in a downtown building
• Fire department orders evacuation
• of building and reroutes traffic in
• the neighborhood
• Work at 100s of offices in the
• building and commerce in the area are
  severely affected

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Problem Statement

• Related problem arises in much more general
  settings involving security.
• Example
• High-rise apartment building
• installs turnstyle-type access control
  residents required to carry access cards even
  when leaving for short time
• Some tenants find this annoying
• Others feel safer and may even be willing to pay
  more rent thanks to this

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Problem Statement

• U-CASS aims to
• Assess economic impact of security initiatives
• Develop general approach to understanding
  interplay between security and commerce
• Develop approach with wide applicability to urban
  areas nationwide
• Identify ways to minimize economic impact of
  security initiatives
• Identify situations where increased security
  enhances economic activity

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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Ultimate Project Goal Develop a decision support
  tool that planners and decision makers can use to
  make choices about security initiatives/countermea
  sures
• Tool based on risk and economic analysis
• Usable to compare security measures or packages
  (portfolios) of security measures as to risk
  and economic consequences
• Applicable to a variety of urban areas

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Research Challenges

• Challenge 1 Not much relevant methodology
• Considerably less work on economic impacts of
  security policies and practices
• Security Economics Activities that affect,
  prevent, or mitigate insecurity in the economy
  use of tools to analyze dynamics of security

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Research Challenges

• Challenge 2 Metrics
• How measure things like inconvenience,
  willingness to accept delays, etc.?

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Research Challenges

• Challenge 2 Metrics
• Many tools of economic modeling
• depend on interval or ratio scales whereas
  we may only be able to expect ordinal scale
  responses
• Is this effect large, medium, or small?
• Is this green, blue, yellow, orange, or red?
• If we only have ordinal scales, can we use them
  in our economic modeling?

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Research Challenges

• Challenge 3 Infrequent Events
• There is a considerable literature on economics
  and security when events have a reasonable
  frequency of occurring
• Then, recurrence of events allows for testing
  models and tools.
• Example shoplifting

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Research Challenges

• Challenge 4 Data Uncertainty
• Example Put metal detector in store entrance
• How does this change probability a person will
  enter the store?
• Less likely because of long lines?
• More likely because it seems store is safer?
• Level of accuracy of these probabilities affects
  conclusions about resulting economic activity.

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Research Challenges

• Challenge 5 Indirect Impacts
• Case in point Economic impacts of closing off
  Pennsylvania Ave. in front of the White House
  (Hoffman, Chalk, Liston, Brennan, 2000)

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Research Challenges

• Challenge 6 Dependence on input from Individuals
  and Businesses
• Input often relatively subjective
• Hard to quantify
• Inconsistent responses
• Subject to bias
• Requires careful formulation of questions or you
  get the wrong information

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Research Challenges

• Challenge 7 Measuring the Benefits of Security
• Most of the literature on economics and security
  has focused on costs of security.
• Virtually no work on benefits of security
  investments from economic point of view.
• Difficulty of making benefits precise.
• Differing time periods over which to assess
  benefits
• Complexity of analyzing indirect benefits from
  security initiatives
• Major challenge to U-CASS project Develop
  methodologies for assessing economic benefits of
  new security initiatives

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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Information Gathering Stage
• Developed sets of alternative security
  initiatives/countermeasures
• Video surveillance (cameras)
• Random vehicle inspections
• Permanent street closures to
• traffic
• Temporary perimeters access
• control
• Random bag inspection
• Increased visible presence of police
• X-rays magnetometers in building lobbies

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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Information Gathering Stage
• Developed sample scenarios
• Teams of shooters
• Subway chemical agent
• Subway bomb
• Bus bomb
• Street bomber

Mumbai attacks Credit Indiaexpress.com
Credit Commons.Wikipedia.org
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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Using Our Tool
• First choose a scenario to consider
• Our tool is designed to recommend countermeasures
  that might be put in place, based on the scenario
• Choose a countermeasure or set of countermeasures
• Measure cost/benefit of the countermeasures
  chosen by considering
• Capital and operating costs of the
  countermeasures
• Economic costs and benefits of the implementation
• Reduction in risk of the scenario being realized
  and resulting reduction in expected costs of an
  attack.

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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Summary of the PIE Approach
• Selection of a scenario
• Selection of countermeasure or portfolio of
  countermeasures
• Discrete event simulation to understand local
  economic impacts of portfolio of countermeasures
• Risk analysis to determine reduction in risk of
  the scenario given the countermeasures
• Computable general equilibrium modeling to
  understand regional/global economic
• impact stemming from local impact

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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Understanding economic activity in a region
• Normal activity
• Activity after a countermeasure
• Developed a simulation tool
• Discrete event simulation
• One version based on ARENA
• simulation software
• Another version based on OMNet
• simulation software

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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Developed a simulation tool
• CCICADA has extensive experience with ARENA
• But ARENA is not open-source not usable over the
  web
• OMNET can be used to create a web-enabled
  decision support tool.

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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Developed a simulation tool
• ARENA and OMNet
• Input scenario and a security initiative
• Input information about probabilities of
  different movements/behaviors
• If a pedestrian passes a restaurant, what is
  probability she will go inside?
• If a car finds a street blocked, what is
  probability it will make a right turn and seek a
  parallel street?

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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Developed a simulation tool
• ARENA and OMNet
• Output Changes in
• level of economic
• activity
• After an hour
• After a day
• After a year

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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Developed a simulation tool
• How did we get information about the inputs?
• Extensive survey using Mechanical Turk
  interviews USBLS USDOT
• Four kinds of individuals considered in survey
  simulation
• Residents
• Those who work in the region
• Shopowners
• Those who come to the region for recreation or
  shopping

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U-CASS Research Methodology
Urban Commerce and Security Study (U-CASS)

• Modeling and Simulation
• Required extensive data gathering to populate the
  model students walking the streets survey
• A snapshot from our WTC- area simulation

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Simulation Model User Interface
For any side of a street, you can close it, place
a bag check point on it, or place security
cameras.
Subway bag checks can be employed either manually
or periodically by inputting frequency and
duration.
For a faster animation, a smaller region may be
looked at instead.
Settings related to quality and display of output.
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Simulation Model - Animation

• All pedestrian life is simulated.
• Workers, tourists/ shoppers and
• residents are the pedestrian categories.
• Main focus is on commercial life.
• Online and offline outputs can be obtained
  regarding economic and pedestrian activity on a
  street.

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Simulation Model Offline Output
Offline output available after simulation showing
average number of people on the street, and
average hourly transaction.
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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Economic Analysis
• Estimate direct cost of a countermeasure capital
  costs operating maintenance costs
• Combine the direct costs with the local economic
  costs computed from the simulation model.
• Then use a computable general equilibrium
  analysis to estimate the ripple effect on the
  entire economy

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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Economic Analysis
• CGE is a complex, nonlinear model of the regional
  economy
• Sometimes we add the non-monetary or
  spillover costs such as
• Discomfort people feel
• Congestion
• Delays
• Environmental changes
• Note discomfort could be negative People
  feeling safer (so a positive impact of security
• These spillover costs can be monetized and fed
  into the CGE.

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U-CASS Research Methodology

• Illustrating the Simulation
• We worked on an area of Lower Manhattan around
  the World Trade Center site.

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U-CASS Summary

• Develop a decision support tool that planners
  and decision makers can use to make choices about
  security initiatives/countermeasures
• Achieve a balance between increased security and
  maintaining or improving economic vitality
• Ultimately using this tool to sustain our urban
  environments and the quality of life for those
  within it.
• THANK YOU

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