TSA tries out new techniques at BWI

A variety of new passenger screening technologies and other enhancements have been brought together by the Transportation Security Administration at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, where TSA is testing the whole program under the title “Checkpoint Evolution.” It’s now in place at BWI’s Terminal B checkpoint for Southwest Airlines passengers. Part of the program involves the use of scanning technologies that have been tested individually at other airports, including x-ray machines that give TSA agents a better view of the insides of carry-on bags; and new imaging machines that can show what a passenger might be concealing under his or her clothes. But the project also makes some changes to the security checkpoint environment designed to keep passengers calm – like interior walls around the checkpoint lines that use “colors in the cooler end of the spectrum” that have a “calming effect,” TSA said; and playing soothing background music to waiting passengers. The music will “calm passengers in the checkpoint queue area, allowing behavior detection officers to better identify suspicious passengers,” TSA said. On the other side of the checkpoint, it even includes what TSA calls ergonomic “Re-composure benches,” where cleared passengers can sit and put their shoes back on – yeah, you still have to take off your shoes. The program also involved new training of TSA officers to make them more proficient at explosives detection and at observing the behavior of passengers, looking for telltale signs of stress that shouldn’t be there after that soothing music and those cool colors. Check it out for yourself at http://www.tsa.gov/evolution/innovation.shtm.