Vehicle screening checkpoint design

Principles from military checkpoints applied to civilian sites

           Somewhere in nearly every city today, police officers or contract guards are screening motor vehicles. They are inspecting cars and their passengers before granting them access to a site or facility.

           Mainly this occurs at military and government installations, but many more places are now routinely performing such inspections—that includes entry points for private parking garages, business campuses and even commercial centers.

           Screeners seek to detect weapons, explosives or contraband—and sometimes all three at once. Less often, guards check vehicles for fugitives, stowaways, or watch-listed individuals.

           For high-threat and high-security sites, screening posts have to meet complicated requirements: maintaining flows during peak-hour operations; managing alarms and threat situations; protecting personnel; containing explosions or attacks, should they occur; letting authorized vehicles bypass the checkpoint; and many more.

           With the demand growing for such checkpoints at civilian facilities, relatively inexperienced personnel are likely to be involved in planning, design, and implementation.

           Here are ten key factors to consider in designing vehicle-screening posts.

   1. Speed reduction: Slowing oncoming vehicles is a nearly universal aim, to give guard personnel a chance to assess and respond, and to thwart a potential attacker’s ability to use speed as a weapon. Forced turns, narrowed lanes, earth berms, bollards, speed bumps and walls are all effective ways to reduce vehicle speeds. Keep in mind, though, that some high-threat posts do require alternative, high-speed entrances for “friendly” vehicles (see “Bypassing” below).

    2. Remote observation: From protected locations, well away from approaching vehicles, screeners should be able to observe vehicles approaching and entering the control zone. Their aim is to assess intentions, using such factors as speed of travel, number of passengers and visibility of the vehicle’s interior (or, for pickups or flatbeds, of cargo areas).

   3. Remote disabling: High-threat environments require methods for remote vehicle disabling, using such devices as stop-sticks or power-deployed bollards. Some posts require emplacements for counter-attack forces and weapons.

   4. Signalling and communications: Approaching drivers need to know what screeners want: Should a vehicle stop or advance? Should drivers leave engines running, or turn them off? Windows up or down? Should hands be visible at all times? Simple, automated signals—even just red-or-green lights—can help to make it clear what drivers should do. Oral instructions must be audible; if guards issue instructions from a distance or from a guardhouse, amplification may be required.

    5. Containment: Once a vehicle has entered a screening and inspection zone, it must be contained—this means preventing unauthorized movement, but also limiting the potential for damage from an explosion or an armed attack. Impact-absorbing sally ports offer one approach, as do ballistic-resistant surrounds. Some sites will allow use of earth berms or impact-deflecting walls. If such provisions will not work, inspection areas may have to be located well away from target facilities.

    6. Bypassing:  Some vehicles—known company cars, patrol vehicles, or trusted delivery trucks—may be exempt from screening and waived through, or cleared with reduced scrutiny. Bypass lanes can reduce backups in inspection bays, but they must be fortified against unauthorized use. If an entry for visitors and guests is also used by high-profile figures and protected individuals, the objective may be to avoid slowing or stopping their vehicles outside of the protected zone—the exact opposite of the aim with other vehicles.

    7. Vehicle removal: Inevitably, a vehicle will stall or become disabled and will require removal from the inspection area. It may also become necessary to displace a suspect vehicle for further scrutiny elsewhere, or to remove a known hazard. Designs must allocate space and provide barrier systems in ways that allow vehicle removal with minimal disruptions to flow.

    8. Vehicle staging: Lines of vehicles awaiting inspection can present overwhelming logistical problems, jeopardizing performance. Parking policies can reduce the number of vehicles near the most vulnerable areas—as now happens at airports—or waiting cars can be kept away from the inspection area and green-lighted for close approach one at a time.

    9. Command, communications and control: Screening stations need a central post for system overrides and backup, with communications capabilities and direct views of critical positions. If screening personnel—that is, those who are actually inspecting vehicles—are also staffing the command and control post, at least one person must remain in a position to run it.

    10. Searching humans: If passengers are subject to search outside of their vehicles, you may need to segregate search areas for males, females and children. Considerations of flow are paramount, taking into account distance from vehicles and control of belongings.

           Designers are gaining more experience with vehicle screening in civilian settings. We cannot always apply principles of military checkpoint design, but they can help to inform sound design solutions for civilian sites.