Railway Security of the Acela Express between Washington DC and Essay

Railway Security of the Acela Express between Washington DC and Boston, USA - Essay Example The USA 9/11 commission has emphasized on the need to have increased efforts of minimizing loopholes and instances of enemy attacks to secure public places through increased funding for security operations and enhanced legislative initiatives. The 9/11 commission noted that â€Å"opportunities to do harm are as great, or greater, in maritime or surface transportation.† This paper will explore risk assessment and management for the Railway transport industry in the United States particularly the Acela Express railroad services. Under risk assessment, it will try to explain on the criticality, vulnerability, and possibility of threat of attack while risk management will include measures of risk mitigation based on security loopholes or weaknesses identified. The nature of terrorist attacks experienced in different parts of the world have seemed to target places where people congregate for different reasons including commerce, worship, work among others. The enemies of common good have intention to kill and destroy either as a way of retaliation or to seek recognition of their power by their so called opponents. Some of the points where attacks have been witnessed include places of passenger transport like airports, railway stations, bus stops among others. There have also been attacks en route through means such as hijackings, bombings, armed attack, sabotage, arson, unconventional attacks, kidnapping, barricade or hostage. They have used weapons like explosives, fire or firebomb, firearms, chemical agents and radiological agents and threats. Vulnerability and criticality of a rail system to an attack should be assessed based on assumptions about the sort of attack and the magnitude of the impact including loss of life, casualties, econ omic disruptions, destruction of the environment etc. The threat level should be the sort of information to be acquired which may range from low, moderate, substantial, severe to critical, the