Los Angeles to Use Body Scanners at Transit Hubs as New York Tests Them

Los Angeles’ transit agency said Tuesday that it would become the first in the nation to use body scanners to screen passengers entering stations, a bold effort to thwart terrorist threats as agencies in New York and elsewhere test the same technology.

Officials in Los Angeles said that riders need not worry that their morning commute would turn into the sort of security nightmare often found at airports or even sporting events. The portable screening devices, which will be deployed later this year, will “quickly and unobtrusively” screen riders without revealing their anatomy and without forcing them to line up or stop walking, they said.

“We’re looking specifically for weapons that have the ability to cause a mass casualty event,” Alex Wiggins, the chief security and law enforcement officer for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said Tuesday. “We’re looking for explosive vests, we’re looking for assault rifles. We’re not necessarily looking for smaller weapons that don’t have the ability to inflict mass casualties.”

The new body scanner system could expand far beyond Los Angeles. The federal government has been studying the technology for nearly 15 years and the Transportation Security Administration has been testing the scanners over the past year with major transportation agencies nationwide. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey deployed them in a test this week at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, where a man tried to detonate a faulty pipe bomb in December.

The devices themselves resemble the sort of black laminate cases that musicians lug around on tour — not upright metal detectors. Dave Sotero, a spokesman for the LA Metro, said the machines, which are on wheels, can detect suspicious items from 30 feet away and can scan more than 2,000 passengers per hour. The units can be pointed in the direction of riders as they come down an escalator or into a station.

“Most people won’t even know they’re being scanned, so there’s no risk of them missing their train service on a daily basis,” he said.

The software can detect hidden objects using technology that examines the naturally occurring waves produced by a person’s body. The technology does not emit radiation, officials added.

Sotero said the agency had purchased several of the units for about $100,000 each, but he would not specify exactly how many. He said that authorities still needed to be trained on how to use the technology.

Los Angeles County’s metro system has one of the largest riderships in the United States, with 93 rail stations alone — and it is set to expand. Sotero said the new scanning units would be mostly deployed at random stations, but would certainly be used at major transit hubs and in places where large crowds are expected for marches, races and other events.

“There won’t be a deployment pattern that will be predictable,” he said. “They will go where they’re needed.”

The Transportation Security Administration partnered with the Los Angeles transit agency on the project, helping the agency test and vet security technologies. The devices the agency ultimately purchased — made by the company Thruvision — can be placed at locations throughout the transit system and can identify both metallic and nonmetallic objects such as weapons and explosives, officials said.

The TSA tested the Thruvision technology extensively, and has tested body scanners in New York City’s Penn Station, Washington, D.C.'s Union Station and at New Jersey Transit stations. A spokesman for New Jersey Transit said Wednesday that the agency would review whether the new devices in Los Angeles enhance security there.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, two types of scanners were tested in the Port Authority Bus Terminal, a major hub for bus and subway riders in midtown Manhattan. Shortly after the morning rush Wednesday, several riders in the bus terminal said they would welcome the body scanners and did not consider them a privacy concern. “There’s a lot of people here and it’s good for our safety,” said Amanda Agostino, 22, an au pair in New Jersey, who was waiting for a bus to Philadelphia.

Brad Allard, who was visiting from England, said he could see the technology being deployed in his home country. “It’s good,” said Allard, 21, who is studying police sciences. “Obviously safety is a priority.”

Carole Fell, who was waiting to ride a Greyhound bus to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to visit friends, said she was more annoyed with the slow lines to board than she would be with body scanners.

“Any surveillance we can get these days is better than none,” said Fell, 72, who lives on the Upper East Side. “There’s a lot of cuckoo people around and maybe they can ward off something.”

Sotero of the Los Angeles transit agency said officials had examined scanners that patrons would have to walk through, but had opted against it.

Last year, the agency about doubled the number of law enforcement personnel deployed on the system, Sotero said.

“This new technology will augment our aggressive safety and security posture and help us proactively deter potential attacks to our system,” Sheila Kuehl, a Los Angeles County supervisor and the chairwoman for the transit agency’s board, said in a statement. Last month, a woman was killed after getting off a Bay Area Rapid Transit train at MacArthur Station in Oakland, California, the last of three unrelated homicides at area stations that occurred less than a week apart. The killings highlighted concerns about the safety of public transportation, with some questioning whether the station should have had a higher level of security.

In December, an attempted suicide bombing in New York City ended when a man detonated a faulty pipe bomb in a corridor connecting the Times Square and Port Authority subway stations during the morning commute. The suspect, a 27-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh, was the only person seriously injured, but the blast shook a city that only weeks before had seen eight people killed in a truck attack along a Manhattan bike path, and whose residents’ lives, as Mayor Bill de Blasio said the day of the bombing, “revolve around the subway.”

Still, passengers are far more likely to be victims of personal crime, such as being robbed or groped, than to be the victim of a terrorist attack, said Brian D. Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

A successful security system would help passengers feel safe from those more common crimes without interfering with their commutes, he said.

“If people find they are being pulled aside and they sigh and roll their eyes and are delayed,” he said, it could make people less likely to use the rail system.

Even though officials have said the technology would be unobtrusive, Taylor questioned whether employees would still have to stop and question people who are flagged as having a suspicious item — possibly for a false alarm.

“Someone has to intervene, stop that person and check out what’s going on,” Taylor said. “That causes delay and it also causes a sense of invasiveness among the passengers.” Juan Machado, 29, who uses the Metro rail system frequently to get around Los Angeles, said that although he’s not sure exactly how the new scanning system would work, the idea of being screened concerns him because he is worried that the system will generate false positives.

“Going through TSA at the airport, I think about how many times they pull a bag from the conveyor belt and ask to take a look at it,” he said. “A lot of things might look suspicious when you’re X-raying them from a distance.”

“I think it really depends on how it’s executed,” he continued. “If it causes a lot of delays and problems, and people being harassed by the police, then it’s definitely a negative. But if we don’t even notice it, and they use it in a responsible way, then I think it’s a good thing.”