Long Lines and the Ire of the Travelling Public: The TSA’s Adaptive Challenge
In a recent statement the US Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, outlined several areas which are key to addressing the challenge of long lines at airports across the country, including:
- Hiring more TSA personnel
- Increasing enrollment in pre-check programs
- Asking airlines to reduce the quantity of carry-on luggage
While these are practical examples of things which may improve the performance of the TSA, it begs the question:
Are they targeting the real challenge associated with airport security and the traveler experience?
Methodologies like Lean and Queueing theory suggest that you can improve the existing process and make it more efficient. But there is a question as to whether these methods address the additional needs of effectiveness (when it comes to overall security) and experience (of passengers, flight crew and airport employees who pass through security).
What we know
Consider that in June 2015, the acting Head of the TSA was re-assigned after an assessment by the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security revealed that fake bombs and weapons were successfully carried through the screening points in 67 out of 70 tests performed in airports across the United States. The evidence suggests that the current process which we are trying to improve does not work. Is the answer a case of throwing more resources at it? What is the TSA trying to accomplish?
The intent of the security process is to identify and apprehend individuals who are interested in doing harm to others by finding individuals intending to do harm to others, detecting harmful devices, or by looking for behavioral cues and other intelligence which may tip off TSA about a potential threat.
The challenge, therefore, lies in identifying new ways to meet this intent and at the same time have it be less intrusive and more customer friendly, i.e. shorter lines, faster processing time, and less invasive.
Long Lines and Causal Opacity
The recent news coverage of long lines at airports all over the US has been tied to the ability of the TSA to move passengers through security checkpoints more efficiently. However, if you think back over the years, before 9/11, you would surely appreciate that this has always been a problem. We could look at the TSA as the cause of such long lines, however, if memory serves me correctly, I remember being in long lines particularly during the summer travel period, decades ago when security checks were a lot less stringent. You have to remember that at that time even “non-fliers” were allowed to enter the airport all the way to the departure gate!
Airports have a finite footprint and the travel schedules (i.e., arrival and departure times) are skewed leading to a pattern of airports being under-utilized most of the day.
Is the challenge one that concerns revising TSA procedures? Will more TSA officers create the relief often touted or expected by travelers? Will “over-resourcing” the bottleneck areas be a sustainable solution?
It seems there are at least three problems here. One is the ineffectiveness of TSA in detection and apprehension, as evidenced by performance in the tests mentioned earlier. The second is the ability to do this and manage peak traffic. Thirdly, is the ability to do both while enhancing the end-to-end experience of passengers through the airport.
While the first may have an impact on the second, it need not be the case that the second is simply a TSA problem. The third problem will require broad-based thinking around how security fits within the full passenger experience at an aiport.
These areas have different intentions and require an end-to-end understanding of the travel and security process from ticketing to arrival at the airport through to boarding and departure. Given the numerous touch-points and stakeholders involved, the system requires close collaboration by airlines, TSA, airport authorities, catering companies and more to implement a workable solution.
Creating new solutions — adaptive challenges and design thinking
Achieving the trio of outcomes around effective security, efficient passenger processing and enhanced passenger experience is an adaptive challenge. Where the issues (or opportunities) facing an organization are linked to causes that aren’t well known and outcomes that are largely unpredictable, a different mindset is required. In this case, something altogether new is being created necessitating an abductive mindset focused on hypothesizing new ideas and testing them in the world.
This orientation towards “the new” is a core part of design thinking.
In adopting a design thinking stance we are focused on engaging people around questions like “what might be?” and “how might we?”. We are focused on defining better outcomes and improved futures. We are intrigued by what people naturally do (and naturally want to be able to do). Lastly, we are focused on experiments and prototypes to learn more along the way.
Useful starting points
Opportunities at checkpoints
What are the alternatives to security checkpoints? In what ways might they be more effective than those currently employed by airport security?
We know that in other countries (and in pilot programs in airports such as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International) there is evidence that simultaneous divesting of personal belongings into trays along a conveyor belt is more efficient, and may be more effective from a screening perspective, than the singular sequential divestment model currently in use.
Opportunities to affect passenger behavior
To what extent do we currently understand passenger behavior in the terminals? Take carry-on bags, for example. People hold onto their carry-on luggage for various reasons.
- Lack of trust in the baggage handling process
- Wanting to have access to certain items during the flight
- Speed of deplaning and exit from the airport (especially for business travelers who do not wish to wait at the carousels for their luggage)
Is there a way to affect any or all three of these points such that passengers feel comfortable relinquishing carry-on luggage? Is there a way to divorce carry-on bags from the queue at the checkpoint?
Opportunities for new thinking around airline processes
If we consider that the boarding experience is also impacted by passengers putting carry-ons into the overhead compartments, affecting this area can have the effect of reducing boarding times — thereby improving both the customer and airline experience. To address this requires the involvement of multiple stakeholders using a human-centered design — understanding the intent and surfacing some of the tacit assumptions being made both by travelers and security about how systems work in an airport.
Opportunities to optimize how we use security
Create a more robust known-traveler network and have TSA focus on the “less known” travelers. This approach could potentially eliminate the need to hire new TSA officers and allow them to concentrate on the segment of the traveling public on which we have less information.
The issues of security and enhanced passenger experience at airports are complex ones with no obvious quick solutions. The TSA has faced the ire of the American public for decades on both sides of this issue; either in the area of detection or the impact they have on the traveler experience. Nobody has a complete vision of the future state — it may require the creation of something altogether new.
What would you like to see at airports from the perspectives of effective security, efficient passenger processing and enhanced customer experience?
