Designing optimal aviation baggage screening strategies using simulated annealing

  • Authors:

  • Thomas J. Canadalino, Jr.;John E. Kobza;Sheldon H. Jacobson

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Industrial Engineering, Texas Tech University, Box 43061, Lubbock, TX;Department of Industrial Engineering, Texas Tech University, Box 43061, Lubbock, TX;Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, 1206 West Green Street (MC-244), University of Illinois, Urbana, IL

  • Venue:
  • Computers and Operations Research
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

Terrorist activities are a critical threat to domestic aviation security. Current aviation security models created to address this threat are descriptive rather than prescriptive; they evaluate a given baggage screening strategy rather than identify optimal baggage screening strategies. Moreover, these models only incorporate costs associated with purchasing and operating baggage screening security devices. This research introduces a comprehensive cost function that not only includes direct costs associated with the purchase and operation of baggage screening security devices, but also includes indirect costs associated with device errors. A methodology is presented to determine the best selection of baggage screening security devices that minimizes the expected annual total cost of a baggage screening strategy. Computational experiments with this methodology are presented.