Will we see more train security after news of terror plot?
Posted April 23, 2013 8:48 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130 – Security checks, body scanners, no liquids or box cutters.. Could train travel in Canada become more like travelling by air?
Following the foiled terror plot revealed yesterday targeting a VIA passenger train, attitudes may be changing when it comes to security on our rail system. But some experts point out there’s a reason the country’s railways have never been considered a significant security threat.
“I don’t see security being increased in any significant way, and there are a couple of reasons for that,” says Professor Wesley Wark, a security, terrorism and intelligence expert with the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.
“One is that there’s probably no case to be made for increasing security in terms of the known risks. The exception to this is cross-border travel to the United States, and less passenger traffic than cargo traffic, which is something that has been scrutinized fairly closely since the 9/11 attacks. You don’t jump in with two feet just because there’s been one plot that’s been foiled, apparently at a fairly early stage,” he tells News1130.
“The other thing to keep in mind about rail travel in Canada is that it’s a fairly fragile industry and if you imposed a lost of security burdens on it, not only would that be expensive but I think it would turn away some of the population that does travels by rail and that could well cause the industry, as a whole, to crash. I think both an economic calculation and a risk assessment calculation would suggest that there won’t be major changes to rail security, with the possible exception of a little more attention paid to cross-border trains.”
However, Wark does say that railways are a classic, “soft target” for terrorism. “The term ‘soft target’ embraces all kinds of things, essentially some piece of public infrastructure that is not protected by heavy security, perhaps can’t be protected by heavy security, and rail certainly falls within that.”
“The other thing that is odd about these arrests and this plot, the question you have to ask, is why terrorists, possibly supported by a group overseas, would choose this as a particular target. It’s not what would be considered a high-value target — sure you can cause mayhem and some destruction and death but it doesn’t carry great symbolism in the way that other targets have done since 9/11.”
