Las Vegas airport security leaves little to chance

Oct 1, 1998 12:00 PM, CAROL CAREY

           

With the opening of Phase 1 of its planned $100 million expansion, Las Vegas' McCarran International airport can now accommodate 45 million passengers per year, up from 30 million. The new D Gates concourse incorporates 26 gates with modern amenities including glass elevators; food, beverage and retail shops; a children's play area, and video screens with advertising images. Less flashy, but no less impressive, are the security improvements that have accompanied McCarran's expansion.

In 1990, in response to then-new FAA rules regarding airport security, McCarran was one of the first airports in the country to install an electronic access control system. The forward-thinking approach to security has not changed. With the upgrade, a new Unix operating system has been installed, along with a Pegasys 1000 software program that replaces the previous program. Among other advantages, the Pegasys could handle up to 1, 024 access points and is faster and more flexible than the previous system, says Ed Hoying Jr., the airport's director of security. "We started with 250 access points, and now we're up to 600," he says. The extensive system controls all access points: doors, gates, jet-bridge doors,bag-belt doors, garage doors for delivery, emergency exits and elevators. Johnson Controls is the main contractor for the access control system's installation, maintenance and upgrade. With the new system, the airport is "capable of programming for individual doors," says Hoying. "We can give one-person, one-door access. With the old system, we had 256 access levels and had to divide up levels for different airlines' doors. We ended up with all airline employees in a level having access to certain groups of doors. If you wanted to exclude some employees from some doors you would have to create a new access level. It was very time-consuming, and you were also limited by the number of access levels in a system. At the time, we had 7,000-8,000 employees and 150 companies that each had its own access requirements." Today, the airport has 12,000 employees. With the Pegasys 1000, Hoying and his staff can assign one door for an individual, and easily put an employee on the system or take him off. There are unlimited access levels, and the system can handle 65,000 records, or employees.

Prepared for heightened security As terrorist threats escalate around the world, McCarran is positioned to deal with potential security crises. "The new system allows us to restrict access by employees to certain areas of the airport to reduce the threat to passengers and tenants. We can change access immediately with the Contingency Plan feature," says Hoying. The system is operated from a central file server with a redundant back-up system and uses 49 intelligent processor panels. These D620 distributed control processors each control up to 16 access points. A graphical user interface allows an alarm window to open immediately when a security breach occurs, enabling an operator to click through appropriate responses to determine the level of response for a particular breach.

"The alarm system is an integral part. There are ten levels of alarm priorities with, for instance, zero requiring the most immediate response," says Hoying. "Each access point has an attached alarm." The D620 processor panels are hardwired to the access points, while, in the D Gate concourse, two miles of fiber-optic cable connect the main file server to the D620s. In the older areas, copper wire connects access points to the file server. The main file server is located in a separate equipment room next to the Airport Control Center (the site of security operations), where other file servers for other airport systems, along with back-up battery power, are located. The Pegasys 1000 system is installed on a Compaq Pro Linea server with a monitor that only requires occasional programming. Otherwise, the system is operated from two workstations in the Airport Control Center.

Increased coverage The system's increased capacity has allowed the airport to connect the cargo plane area, general aviation area and parking garage to the access control system, which uses Cardkey readers. Two miles from the main passenger area, the cargo area includes an approximately 500,000-square-foot warehouse. The 24-hour facility handles 100 flights daily and covers 10 acres. A dedicated telephone modem data line connects the cargo and general aviation areas to the main access control file server. In the general aviation area, some 1,000 small and business aircraft fly daily from approximately 700 acres adjacent to the main airport. The access control system also covers the parking garage. Attached to the main terminal, the garage has a separate, proprietary Western Graphics access control system covering 16 access points with its own software and file server located in the Airport Badging Office. The system's readers recognize the same badges as the Pegasys system. The 6,000-car garage occupies 54 acres and has nine levels. "It's very significant for security that we can limit access to people authorized to be in the parking garage in a certain location," says Hoying.

New CCTV, badging In addition to the increased scope, flexibility and response time of the access control system, McCarran has also upgraded its CCTV and badging systems. In the Airport Control Center, alongside the two Pegasys workstations with their 19-inch monitors are 12 CCTV monitors, eight 9-inch and four 20-inch, which monitor 42 overt and covert cameras, some pan/ tilt/zoom, some fixed. Over the past four years, the airport has switched from black-and-white to color cameras, and added cameras in the new areas such as the D Gates and garage, as well as in a checkpoint area between the main terminal and D Gates concourse. The cameras are Toshiba, JVC, and Sony, with a Burle multiplexer and switching system. The previous badging system has been replaced by a Western Graphics system with Fargo printers that create PVC badges. The independent system includes cameras, mounts, printers and computers with proprietary software. "Two video cameras take digital images; two Compaq computers process the badge pictures and information, and two Fargo printers create the badges," says Hoying. The two stand-alone systems are located in the Airport Control Center and feed into a central server that manages the databases.

"Because the digital images are put onto a database, they can be retrieved faster than previously. The badge is produced on a single piece of PVC, as opposed to our old system which laminated the badge around plastic, a time-consuming process," says Hoying. "Now, we can produce a badge in 60 seconds, as opposed to five minutes. The new badges have an expiration date, and six different colors are used to indicate where people have access authorization." The multi-purpose badges have visual information on front, and coded information on a magnetic stripe in back. Approximately 12,000 employees have been badged.

A story of people The story of McCarran's security program is also a story of people. A security staff of 120 includes 46 members of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, which has a dedicated substation at the airport. Approximately 50 civilian security officers perform functions ranging from customer service to escorting contractors, guarding gates, and working as control room operators. There are also 20 contract security personnel stationed in parking lots. Installing electronic access control at a busy airport is one thing; ensuring that employees will accept and support its use is another. "We found the privacy issue to be of concern to employees when we first installed the system" says Hoying. "We found employees were concerned that their privacy not be abused. For instance, if management didn't implement certain safeguards, anyone could call and ask where an employee was, what doors he or she went through, when they did so. So we have set up procedures that restrict that information by requiring one of our appointed management contacts to deal only with me in releasing such information," says Hoying.

Employees may also react negatively to restriction on their movements. Hoying explains: "The system restricts where people can come and go. An airline employee cannot necessarily visit a friend who works at another airline or in another area because his or her badge has not been programmed to authorize access to that area. Initially, it created a morale problem. We empathized, and educated employees that these restrictions are necessary to make the airport secure for passengers and employees." Another adjustment was that, in an emergency, the access points needed to be open. Honeywell, the airport's life, fire and safety system vendor, provided a link that enables the Pegasys 1000 to open doors in a fire emergency. "Overall, we are much better equipped now to respond to security emergencies and also to provide flexible, complete, and faster routine, day-to-day security to passengers and employees at McCarran," says Hoying. The new equipment's speed and flexibility keep the airport, the 12th busiest in the nation in 1997 and the 18th busiest in the world, running smoothly, and it promises to be a life-saver should local or national security crises occur.

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