Security and CIP — Background

In 1996 the Clinton administration, via Executive Order 13010, identified 8 infrastructures critical to the physical and economic security of the U.S. — Electrical Power; Gas and Oil Production, Storage and Delivery; Telecommunications; Banking and Finance; Water Supply Systems; Transportation; Emergency Services; Government Operations.  In May 1998, the President issued two Decision Directives (PDDs 62 and 63) to protect critical infrastructure against physical and cyber terrorism.  Measures were to be put in place so that interruptions to federal, state, local government and private sector operations would at worst be “brief, infrequent, manageable, geographically isolated, and minimally detrimental” to national welfare.

The post-September2001 security environment lends new urgency to this, and Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) is now a priority that DOTs have to balance against transportation performance and economic efficiency.  We take a broad view of CIP, arguing that the considerable costs of protection — balanced against the very small likelihood that any one measure will actually thwart an attack — are best justified by benefits in other areas, such as mitigating accidental or natural events, or improving traffic flow on congested roads.  Conversely, technologies and initiatives developed for other applications such as ITS could achieve some of the intended functions of CIP, thereby limiting CIP expenditures (e.g. closed circuit cameras on highways: it ITS parlance it's “monitoring,” in CIP it's “surveillance”).

Transportation infrastructure includes, for our purposes:

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