Security analysis and protection of pedestrian zones against acts of terrorism – new challenges for GIS

Abstract

Nowadays, the main issue in fighting against terrorism is the protection of crowds in enclosed spaces such as stations, subway stations and auditoriums. This subject has been dealt with by dedicated services. At present, new forms of terrorist tactics have emerged – a vehicle-ramming into crowds of people. In recent months, an increase of this form of terrorist attack could have been observed. So far, we have witnessed at least six such cases in European cities where 127 people were killed and 726 wounded.
The point of reference for these attacks is the space and its relations. The problem is that in existing space there is usually proximity between traffic and pedestrian zones and even where there is no direct contact, the vehicle attack is still possible.
The guiding principle of solving this issue was an attempt to determine the area of contact between the pedestrian zone and the traffic zone. Based on this assumption, further GIS analyses have been carried out in order to identify the areas of the highest risk factor for crowds. Three cases have been considered: pedestrian areas in enclosed engineering structures (bridges, tunnels), crowds in open spaces located in a vicinity of vehicle traffic and crowds located in town squares which are connected with streets enabling fast and unnoticed entry into the pedestrian zone.
In the summary, the method of recording and the range of objects which should form the GIS source material needed to analyse the safety of crowds in pedestrian zones were formulated.

Received 9.09.2017 Accepted 4.10.2017 Published 30.12.2017