Computers crunching numbers on security

LIVERMORE -- Tighter security can have hidden costs but only recently have scientists using computer simulations begun tallying them up.

In the last four years, federal port and border officials have installed hundreds of fingerprinting machines, identity-checking computers and detectors for chemical, nuclear and radiological weapons.

More ideas -- tracking sensors on cargo containers, for example - - are on the near horizon.

But in detailed computer models built at Sandia National Laboratories-California, scientists are finding that certain security technologies, installed in the wrong places, can back up the flow of goods and people.

Computer scientist Andy Vaughn pointed to a video display of cargo containers being screened for radiation as soon as they were unloaded from a ship. Almost instantly, lines of trucks began backing up.

"There's always some trade-off between security and the flow of commerce," Vaughn said Thursday.

It turns out that delaying cargo containers slightly at one maritime port can compel retailers and consumers to use different ports or shipping methods, with some cost to the U.S. economy.

Sandia researchers found that slowing the average flow of cargo by 6.5 percent or more started backing up orders on the high seas and diverting cargo to other transportation nodes.

"If it's beyond basically a day, people start ordering more supplies or using different suppliers," said Dan Horschel, leader of a research team that built models of a port, an airport and a land border crossing with $6 million of the lab's own internal research money.

A 10 percent slowdown in cargo flow at a Seattle-area port resulted in a 17 percent increase in orders in transit but ultimately a $5 billion decrease in U.S. sales. Ports differ greatly in the kinds of cargo that they handle but in general Sandia researchers concluded that if all U.S. maritime ports slowed down, a significant amount of cargo would be diverted to Canada and enter the United States by border crossings.

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