THREAT ASSESSMENT OF SOFT TARGETS AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE RAILWAY STATION OBJECT

Abstract

Railway stations can be described as places with a mass presence of people and a constant frequency of movement, but at the same time with an insufficient level of protection. In the security community, the term soft targets have been used for these objects. In recent years, they have been a frequent object of terrorist attacks. The threat of attacks on soft targets is currently realized mainly through their vulnerability respectively weak points in the complex. In the conditions of the Slovak Republic, but also in other countries of the world, there is no generally valid method of effective protection of soft targets by assessing their threat and the resulting methods and techniques of protection of soft targets. For example, the methodology for evaluating the threat of a soft target, valid in the Czech Republic, is freely available. Based on the principles and procedures defined in the above methodology, it is possible to quantify the degree of risk to transport terminals, such as railway stations. The main goal of the article is to demonstrate the possibilities of using the above methodology for quantitative evaluation of railway station threats and in this way to help effectively increase the level of operational safety of railway stations and persons in them.