Overview
Security has become a major factor in civil/commercial aviation. In recent decades, the number of threats to aviation security has grown significantly, especially after 9/11. This has led to ever more security regulations as the threats evolve. Security procedures have become exceedingly complex and invasive to passenger privacy; the number of security measures as well as personnel and therefore costs are growing steadily.
At the same time passenger and cargo traffic are expected to double in the next 15 years. Already today, security is one of the main reasons for delayed take-off. It is clear that the current complex security system cannot be adapted to such a growth without a large rise in costs. It has already and will increasingly become a major market restraint.
Therefore, the proposed project COPRA aims to answer two questions:
- How does the threat situation in civil aviation evolve in the future, taking into account both existing and new technologies and their continuing development and proliferation?
- Which opportunities arise from the development and proliferation of new technologies and security procedures to overcome the current complex and expensive security situation and to enable sustainable growth for the future?
- COPRA’s main objective is to answer both questions in a way that will constitute the optimal balance between security, privacy, public acceptability, mobility and costs, while providing ideas on how to increase flexibility and resilience of the whole aviation system against threats.
To that aim COPRA brings together a well-balanced consortium of research organisations, industry and major air transport providers with a wide range of European stakeholders. End-users, technology providers, policy makers and think tanks will be involved in COPRA through the formation of expert groups. The involvement of these expert groups is essential to the success of COPRA’s objectives.