The high cost of airport security

The high cost of airport security. Full-body scanners are the latest tool to help airport screeners foil plots directed at jetliners. Yet they may also cause delays that compel more travelers to drive, which carries bigger safety risks.

The alleged attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day refocused Americans on airport security. Politicians reacted by arguing that airport security is not strict enough. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for airports to use full-body scanners more widely.

Since the Christmas incident, the federal government has announced plans to spend about $1 billion on full-body scanners and other security technology, including bomb detectors.

For many Americans, waiting in lines, taking off their shoes and enduring other security measures are necessary evils. A Dec. 28 Rasmussen poll found that 63% of Americans think security precautions put in place since Sept. 11, 2001, are "not too much of a hassle." Forty-six percent of Americans think the precautions are not strong enough.

But some who study the costs and benefits of security policy doubt that the current regime is working. "It's not clear to me that the $40 billion we've spent on screening passengers since Sept. 11 is the wisest use of security resources," says Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation and a member of the National Aviation Studies Advisory Panel within the Government Accountability Office.

The resources spent are large -- and bigger than you might think. The money allocated to airport security goes far beyond the actual operating budget of the Transportation Security Administration, the branch of the Department of Homeland Security created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to conduct security for U.S. transportation.

The adage goes that time is money, and by that standard, airport security is very expensive. Post-Sept. 11 screening procedures have greatly increased the amount of time Americans spend waiting at the airport by extending the buffer time between arriving at the airport and getting on a flight.

In the three years following Sept. 11, the number of passengers who arrived at an airport two to three hours before departure rose from around 20% of the total to nearly 40%, according to a survey by the Resource Systems Group. Meanwhile, the number who arrived one hour in advance fell from around 20% of all passengers to less than 10%.

Thomas Adler, one of the authors of the survey, says evidence suggests that this pattern persists. "It seems as though arrival patterns have stabilized at those new levels," he says.

That extra time spent at the airport has a cost. It means less time to spend at work, less time with children and less time for leisure.

Another survey by the Resource Systems Group found that average airline passengers traveling on business would be willing to pay about $70 to reduce one hour of travel time. For all other fliers, the survey found, the value of an hour is $31.

Poole calculates that the additional time spent waiting in airports due to security procedures has cost the nation about $8 billion a year since Sept. 11, 2001.

But he arrives at this number through a few assumptions that probably understate the real cost. Poole assumes that an hour of time is worth $50 for business travelerers and $15 for everyone else. He also assumes that the new security procedures added only a half-hour to passengers' travel time.

Substituting full-body scanners for metal detectors would likely increase wait times and thus raise costs. Poole says a passenger takes about 30 seconds longer to get through a full-body scanner than through a metal detector.

"If TSA made (full-body scanners) mandatory as a replacement for metal detectors, this would be huge. There would be lines going out the buildings," says Poole.

A full account of the cost of security delays does not end here, however. There are also ripple effects from the delays that create new costs.

For example, longer delays at the airport have encouraged passengers to seek other modes of transportation, such as driving. Beefing up security generally makes people feel safer. But long security lines following Sept. 11 have had a more important effect on travelers' motivations to drive instead of fly.

"It's hard for people to evaluate the additional benefit of security measures. But it's easy for people to say, 'I'm going to have to stand in line for an hour; I don't like that,' " says Garrick Blalock, a Cornell University economist, who co-authored a paper looking at the connection between airport security and driving fatalities.

Because driving is so much more dangerous than flying, the addition of thousands of additional people taking to the roads rather than the skies after Sept. 11 has led to more car accidents. Blalock estimated that from September 2001 to October 2003, the enhanced airport security led to 2,300 road fatalities that otherwise would not have occurred.

If security delays were to lengthen again, a similar driving-fatality effect could happen, Blalock says.

But these costs have to be measured against the massive damage that would be done to the economy if another terrorist attack were to occur. The Sept. 11 attacks, for example, cost New York City's economy $27 billion in the first 15 months following the attacks, according to the New York City comptroller.

Poole says there are ways to reduce delays without compromising security. One idea is the creation of a registered traveler program. Frequent fliers could undergo extensive background checks and, if they pass, receive biometric cards that would allow them to pass through a quicker security line at the airport. Think of it as a fast-pass lane at a toll-road station.

Travelers might be able to sign up for such a program soon. Erroll Southers, President Obama's nominee for head of the TSA, said in a congressional hearing that he supports the idea of some kind of registered traveler program. ( msn.com )

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