London Rejects Subway Scanners

Bomb detectors on the London tube have been ruled out despite the government having tested the technology.

London Underground is likely to reject the use of passenger scanners designed to detect weapons or explosives as they are “not practical”, a security chief for the capital’s transport authority said on 14 March 2006.

The government had intended to run trials of scanning systems on the underground network, but they are unlikely to go ahead as the technology is believed to have a series of drawbacks.

Ministers were keen to develop the use of weapons scanners following the tube bombings in July last year. Trials of a millimeter wave scanner – which screens for traces of explosives and concealed weapons – and an X-ray machine were carried out on Heathrow Express platforms at Paddington station, west London at the start of 2006. The Department for Transport is still evaluating the results of the testing.

Geoff Dunmore, operational security manager for London Underground, said that the network would not be the right environment for the technology.

“Basically, what we know is that it’s not practical,” he told Government Computing News. “People use the tube for speed and are concerned with journey time. It would just be too time consuming. Secondly, there’s just not enough space to put this kind of equipment in.”

“Finally there’s also the risk that you actually create another target with people queuing up and congregating at the screening points.”

Dunmore said that London Underground had been talking to the Met and the British Transport Police to assess other ways to improve security. He said the use of hand held detectors along with dogs had proved a more effective solution.

Kable’s Government Computing