**GAO-10-435R**                      Published: May 27, 2010. Publicly Released: Jun 21, 2010.                  

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## Highlights

Terrorist attacks on mass transit and commuter rail facilities in Moscow, Madrid, London, and Mumbai, and the significant loss of life and disruption they caused, have highlighted the vulnerability of transportation facilities to terrorism and the need for greater focus on securing these facilities, including intermodal transportation terminals. Such intermodal transportation terminals--locations where multiple modes or types of passengers or cargo transportation connect an merge--are potentially high value targets for terrorists because the large number of passengers or volume of cargo can lead to significant loss of human life and economic disruption. For example, New York City's Pennsylvania ("Penn") Station, the nation's busiest rail station, functions as an intermodal hub for Amtrak, two ma commuter rail lines (New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road), as well as six city subway routes. According to Amtrak, an average of 500,000 passengers the station daily. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has primary responsibility for homeland security, including transportation security, under the Homeland Security Act. Within DHS, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has primary responsibility for securing the aviation and surface transportation sectors. The Department of Transportation (DOT) supports DHS by providing technical assistance through some programs (e.g., supporting the development of security standards for mass transit and passenger rail systems). DOT also assists DHS when possible with implementation of its security policies, as allowed by DOT statutory authorities and available resources. A number of other entities, including Amtrak, transportation agencies, local law enforcement, and state and local governments, have day-to-day responsibilities for securing the aviation and surface transportation sectors. Amtrak, for example, operates the nation's primary intercity passenger rail system and serves more than 500 stations across the country. DHS and DOT formalized their roles and responsibilities for transportation security through a memorandum of understanding signed in September 2004, which identified that they would work together to achieve the required level of multi- and intermodal security. You raised questions about the level of security and protection at intermodal transportation facilities throughout the nation, and asked us to examine federal efforts to secure these facilities. On January 7, 2010, we met with your staff to update them on the status of our work assessing the security of aviation and surface transportation modes and intermodal facilities. As agreed, this report summarizes the work that we have completed in recent years in the aviation and surface transportation security area that is most directly related to intermodal facilities, as well as our ongoing work in these areas. Although this work focused on individual modes and related facilities within the transportation sector--such as aviation, mass transit and passenger rail, freight rail, and highway infrastructure--many of the facilities examined were also intermodal. Thus, this report addresses the following questions: (1) To what extent has DHS taken actions to ensure that efforts to strengthen the security of the aviation and surface transportation sectors are based on a risk management framework, particularly those that include intermodal facilities? (2) To what extent has DHS taken actions to ensure the security of the aviation and surface transportation sectors, particularly those actions that involve intermodal facilities?

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## Topics

Homeland Security

Airline securityAirport securityAviationAviation securityCommercial aviationFacility securityHomeland securityIntermodal transportationMass transitOperational testingPassengersPersonnel managementRail securityRisk assessmentRisk managementSecurity investigationsSecurity threatsStrategic planningTerrorismTransportation security