The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to acquire new systems that automatically screen checked bags for explosives before being able to determine if any of the systems actually meet explosives detection requirements established in 2010, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns in a report.
As with any acquisition program, the problem with overlapping development and testing efforts with system procurement is a higher risk of development cost increases, program delays and increased financial risk to a program, says the report, Aviation Security: TSA Has Enhanced Its Explosives Detection Requirements for Checked Baggage, but Additional Screening Actions Are Needed (GAO-11-740).
TSA established new explosives detection requirements in January 2010 for its Explosives Detection Systems (EDS), which are deployed at the nation’s airports to automatically screen checked bags for explosives. However, the agency and its government partners have faced challenges collecting data on certain explosives–primarily due to volatility and safety handling issues–which in turn has meant that the vendors developing their respective EDS systems to meet the new detection requirements are unable to adequately develop their software algorithms that help with detection, GAO says.
The lack of this data also prevents the Transportation Security Laboratory, which is managed by the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology (S&T) branch and conducts certification testing of EDS systems, from doing the certification testing, the report says.
Already, TSA and S&T have acknowledged that doing the necessary explosives data collection simultaneously with conducting a competitive procurement for the new EDS systems has presented problems for the EDS acquisition, GAO says.
So TSA plans to go ahead with the purchases anyway.
“TSA officials stated that all of the 260 EDSs they plan to purchase in 2011 will be upgraded to meet all of the 2010 requirements at a later date,” GAO says.
According to the GAO, TSA plans to purchase the EDS systems in the fourth quarter of FY ’11 for $256 million. TSA currently buys EDS systems from Morpho Detection, which is part of France’s Safran Group, L-3 Communications [LLL], and SAIC [SAI]. Three other firms are also trying to get their systems certified through the TSL, including OSI Systems [OSIS] and SureScan Corp.
TSA originally planned to begin buying the new systems in December 2010 (Defense Daily, Dec. 15, 2009).
GAO adds that TSA has not crafted an acquisition schedule for EDS systems that meets best practices nor has it prepared a new cost estimate for the systems based on meeting the 2010 detection requirements. In addition, the report says that TSA’s life-cycle cost estimate for the EDS systems excludes the costs associated with systems that meet the 2010 requirements.
The report also says that five of the six vendors pursuing the new EDS procurement are concerned that TSA is not communicating effectively with them about various aspects of the procurement.
Before the development of new detection requirements in 2010, TSA previously updated EDS requirements in 2005. However, GAO says only some of the currently deployed EDS meet the 2005 requirements while others are still operating at explosives detection levels established in 1998.
“Not only has TSA failed to complete implementation of the 2005 standards, now the 2010 standards will be delayed, leaving the whole process in disarray,” Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said in a statement.
The latest report adds fuel to Mica’s growing criticism of TSA.
“This adds to TSA’s growing list of problems previously highlighted by GAO, including the failed development of the SPOT behavior detection program, chaos in the Transportation Worker Identification Credentialing program, and TSA’s use of faulty cost estimates to make the all-federal screening model appear to be less costly than contract screener options,” Mica said.