Security

Security concerns related to ITS are focused on protection of surface transportation information and infrastructure. Surface transportation is now, more than ever, relying on information technologies to sense, collect, process and disseminate information to improve the efficiency of moving goods and people, improve the safety of our transportation system and provide travel alternatives.

Security concerns are addressed in the ITS Architecture in two ways:

  1. Securing ITS: ITS as an information system must be protected so that ITS applications are trusted, reliable and available when they are needed. This aspect of security applies to all the physical objects and information flows, impacts all enterprise objects, and affects the structure and content of communications profiles. "Securing ITS" provides the foundation for ITS and especially C-ITS, since ITS systems must be secure before they can reliably be used to improve the efficacy of the surface transportation system.

  2. ITS Security Areas: ITS can be used to enhance the security of the surface transportation system. Eight security areas define the ways that ITS can be used to detect, respond to, and recover from threats against the surface transportation system. These eight ITS security areas are shown at the top of the figure below, supported by the "Securing ITS" security services that make ITS secure. Specific subsystems, information flows, service packages, and supporting physical and logical architecture definitions have been defined for each ITS security area.
Securing ITS Traveler Security Transportation Infrastructure Security Transit Security Rail Security ITS Wide Area Alert HAZMAT Security Freight and Commercial Vehicle Security Disaster Response and Evacuation

Security

Consider a transit surveillance system that includes CCTV cameras and a control center to illustrate these two views of security. From one perspective, we need to make sure that the cameras can only be controlled by the control center, that they can't easily be taken off-line, and that any sensitive images that may be collected are protected from unauthorized disclosure. These are all considerations associated with securing the transit surveillance system and are addressed as part of "Securing ITS". From another perspective, the transit surveillance system is an ITS system that provides both a deterrent and a response tool that improves the security of the transportation system. This view of the transit surveillance system is defined in one of the eight security areas ("Transit Security").