At train stations and airports, we often hear announcements reminding us to watch out for our personal items, and not to leave them unattended. This is one of the security steps to mitigate risk. We keep our belongings in suitcases and bags to make them easier to transport, but these useful items, unfortunately, provide an ideal space for terrorists to hide explosive materials.

The 7^th of July 2005 marks a tragic date for London. That morning, a series of four suicide attacks were carried out by Islamic terrorists. The targets were three London Underground stations and the number 30 double-decker bus. 52 people were killed and over 770 injured during this horrific event.

More recent examples of attacks on public transportation include the 2016 Brussels bombings, with 35 death victims, and the less impactful Parson Green train bombing in London, which still injured 27 people. In response to these attacks, European countries made significant efforts to enhance their approach to possible acts of terrorism. Unfortunately, such threats are still active.

Early detection of these attacks within the transport network is challenging, especially in crowded areas such as metro, train, bus stations, airports, etc. Masses of innocent people navigate these areas on their daily commutes and travels, making it hard to identify key risks while maintaining a soft-touch approach to enable travel to run efficiently. One of the possibilities to support the challenge is through the development of innovations designed to detect unattended items, which malicious actors can use to carry weapons or explosives. Several research and development activities, supported by the European Union, concentrate on this topic, and one of them is the PREVENT PCP project, which identified unattended items as one of the main threats to public transport security.

Efforts to PREVENT Against Threats

PREVENT PCP focuses on augmenting security in public transport and public areas through innovative procurement of technology solutions that will allow timely automatic detection of potentially dangerous unattended items, identification and tracking of perpetrators, and an advanced crisis management system. To achieve its goals, the project relied on the Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) approach to produce innovations. This is a methodology supported by the European Commission that address the challenge of procuring innovative technologies suited to specific security needs.

Crucially, the PCP method benefits all parties involved, aiming to develop solutions that address the specific challenges outlined. The approach supports suppliers in accelerating the process of bringing scientific results to market and, importantly, ensures that taxpayer’s money is used to purchase innovative products that enhance the quality and efficiency of security systems.

While more details about PCP can be found on our website, in this text we present how PCP works in practice.

Procuring Technologies in an Innovative Way

The implementation of the PREVENT PCP project was divided into 4 phases:

• Phase 0: Preparatory Stage, consisting of the Pre-Tendering and Tendering Phases
• Phase 1: Solution Design
• Phase 2: Prototype Development
• Phase 3: Operational Validation

PREVENT PCP is built on the outcomes of commonly agreed security scenarios, addressing critical security issues and a comprehensive set of innovation needs covering both process and technology aspects. These needs were initially defined in a previous project, PREVENT CSA, where extensive preparatory steps were undertaken during its implementation.

Having established strong foundations, the PREVENT PCP team published the ‘Prior Information Notice’ and organised the ‘Open Market Consultation’ meetings and activities to validate the planned PCP process with technology providers. Also, PREVENT PCP prepared the ‘Call for Tenders’ to provide a detailed description of the tendering process, the evaluation procedure, and the criteria used to select subcontractors.

Market Involvement

In Pre-Commercial Procurement, tenderers participate in a competitive process to develop the most appropriate technological solution, with applicants filtered out through several phases.

After much preparatory work, we were finally able to open the application process for interested companies. The number of proposals received was very encouraging. There were 18 applications – with 9 sole tenders and 9 consortia. In total, 34 individual tenderers were involved, representing 8 EU countries and 1 associated EU country. After thorough analysis, the PREVENT PCP team announced the contractors awarded to compete in the first phase of the project:

• DAIMON Consortium – CS GROUP France, CERTH, XXII Group
• PreventUS A.I. – Ayvos A.S.
• Protecting Railway Transportation via Artificial Intelligence Consortium (PREVAIL) – Satways Ltd., imotion Analytics, Vicomtech
• BULL SAS – Bull SAS (Atos)
• PANOPTES Consortium – Herta Security S.L., ChapsVision, ACIC SA
• AI-Transportation Consortium – A.I. Tech srl, SAET SpA.

Having selected the contractors, PREVENT PCP entered phase 1: Solution Design. The awarded R&D providers were asked to describe their tools, provide the complete architecture and design overviews for the solutions and verify the technical, economic and organisational feasibility of their technological approach to address the PREVENT PCP challenge. A series of meetings between the project partners and contractors was arranged to help establish a detailed understanding of the solutions, and to review the requirements of the project against the contractors’ proposed systems.

Technological Solutions in Practice

Phase 2 of the PREVENT PCP: ‘Prototype Development’ was conducted with the participation of 4 qualified consortia: DAIMON, PREVAIL Consortium, BULL SAS, and PANOPTES.

This second stage of work was intense for all project partners, public buyers, and contractors participating in the PCP process. The activities included testing the algorithms at the contractors’ premises, installing and calibrating the solutions and then evaluating them. Moreover, there were numerous oral consultations along the way. Additionally, members of the Technical Management and Procurement Evaluation Committees, as well as other technical advisors, had 8 dedicated meetings with each contractor to strengthen collaboration and to help optimise the solutions’ performance.

After considering both the technical and financial aspects of the developed solutions, BULL SAS and PREVAIL teams were invited to phase 3: Operational Validation. Their solutions were deployed in several pilot sites and tested using the infrastructure of the PREVENT PCP partners.

During this phase, activities included:

• hardware delivery, such as servers and workstations,
• installations at each pilot site,
• camera calibration,
• fine-tuning tests of the solution for each pilot site and
• organisation of progress meetings.

Another important activity during phase 3 was the validation of societal acceptance, through the launch of a societal survey in each of the pilot countries.

How Did it End?

The goal of Pre-Commercial Procurement is to develop solutions to a high technology readiness level (TRL 8-9). Notably, PCP is not a process that finishes with the direct commercialisation of products. This happens when public buyers decide to conduct a follow-up Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI). PCP aim is to award a limited set of prototypes and/or test products. A follow-up PPI to cover the commercial volume of innovative solutions developed during a PCP would be subject to a new ‘Call for Tenders’.

PREVENT PCP finishes on the 31st of October 2024, and the contractors have already concluded their work. The proposed solutions were assessed positively, and there are possibilities for adoption and use in daily activities. Also, there were functionalities identified that could - and should - be improved to increase the tools’ effectiveness. Considering PREVENT is an R&D project, we foresaw this, and it is natural that there are opportunities for continued development through other actions.

Considering the limited time contractors and project partners had to implement the innovative activities, the results are encouraging. Although no decisions have been made as of yet, the public buyers are generally open for participation in future procurement processes (PPI) to acquire PREVENT PCP’s technologies; meaning this PCP initiative may still  have further impact and contribute to augmenting the security of public transport and public areas.

Do you have any questions regarding the PREVENT PCP implementation? Don’t hesitate to contact us at: contact@prevent-pcp.eu!

Ahead of our project, there are the last few months of work on developing solutions for unattended item detection under a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) process. What has been accomplished, and what is still planned? This article will provide many insightful details and answers to these questions.

PCP as a Tool to Respond to the Security Challenge in Public Transport

PREVENT PCP began in September 2021 and was designed to procure technologies that will enhance security in both public transportation and public areas. To achieve the expected results, we rely on a Pre-Commercial Procurement approach. It is an efficient and dependable method for contracting authorities to challenge market innovators through an open, transparent, and competitive process.

We successfully implemented Phase 0 “Preparatory Stage,” which consisted of pre-tendering and tendering parts of planned actions. The next step was Phase 1 “Solution Design,” focused mainly on the technical aspects of proposed technologies. Recently, the project team concluded Phase 2 “Prototype Development”. Let us explore further the activities undertaken and the practical aspects of the work.

Phase 2: Testing, Installation, Calibration, and Evaluation

As previously informed, 4 of the 6 tenderers, which participated in the first part of the PCP process, were awarded a Phase 2 contract:

• DAIMON Consortium – CS GROUP France, CERTH, XXII Group
• BULL SAS – Bull SAS (Atos)
• Protecting Railway Transportation via Artificial Intelligence Consortium (PREVAIL) – Satways Ltd., Imotion Analytics, Vicomtech
• PANOPTES Consortium – Herta Security S.L., ChapsVision, ACIC SA

The second stage of the work  was very intense for the project partners, public buyers, and contractors participating in the PCP process. Overall, the activities included testing the algorithms at the contractors’ premises, installing and calibrating the solutions in SNCF (one of the PREVENT PCP Public Buyers) premises, and then evaluating them connected to 50 cameras in Paris Gare du Nord station. The main highlights from this are:

• During the algorithms tests at the contractors’ premises, the PREVENT PCP public buyers were able to evaluate the different algorithms based on classification of categories, classification of items, association, re-identification, and tracking of the owners' features with the help of datasets recorded by all public transport operators pilots. The results were shared with the contractors, where they could see their position and performance compared to the other 3 contractors in an anonymous way.
• In August, 4 contractors installed their prototypes in SNCF premises and proceeded to calibrate the 50 selected cameras and run some tests in the station.
• In September, the SNCF team, with the help of another PREVENT PCP Public Buyer, RATP, tested the solutions by running more than 200 simulations in stations and qualifying thousands of alerts from the 4 contractors’ solutions to provide feedback to the contractors. The latter were able to return to the SNCF premises to fine-tune their prototypes before a new session of evaluation.
• In October, for the second session of evaluation, SNCF welcomed the public buyers, technical advisors, and project partners in Paris to see and test the solutions to assess their match with the project requirements.
• At the end of Phase 2, the contractors submitted the End of Phase 2 reports, which were assessed by the public buyers.

In such initiatives, effective cooperation and sufficient communication between the project representatives and external entities are crucial. Without them in place, the expected results might not meet the needs. With that in mind, there were numerous oral consultations, also during tests in SNCF premises. Moreover, the members of the Technical Management and Procurement Evaluation Committees, as well as technical advisors, had 8 dedicated meetings with each contractor in order to build the solutions together and optimise performance through the sharing of feedback.

PREVENT PCP Has Entered Its Final Phase

PREVENT PCP achieved the next milestone on February 12, this year, with Phase 3 “Operational Validation” kick-off meeting. The key information regarding this event was which consortia were qualified for the last stage of the PCP. Led by KEMEA, as the main procurer, and based on the public buyers’ evaluation that considered both technical and financial aspects of developed solutions, BULL SAS and PREVAIL teams were awarded a Phase 3 contract and were invited to participate in further works. What will the planned activities include?

The 2 contractors will optimise their solutions in SNCF premises on the 50 cameras from Phase 2 before deploying their solutions in the 7 pilot sites. The tests will be organised using the infrastructure of the PREVENT PCP partners, which are at the same time public transport operators. Thus, developed technologies will be evaluated by SNCF in Paris and Marseille, RATP in Paris, TMB in Barcelona, FGC in Barcelona, AMT in Genova, and Metropolitano de Lisboa, the operator of the Lisbon Metro.

The planned activities include delivering the hardware, such as servers and workstations, the installation at each pilot site, the camera calibration, and the tests to fine-tune the solution for each pilot site. 10 progress meetings are also planned with each contractor and the PREVENT PCP consortium to follow up on their progress and share feedback.

The other main activity for Phase 3 is the validation of societal acceptance through the launch of a societal survey in the 4 pilot countries. By means of an online large-scale population survey in the 4 pilot countries, a representative sample of 1000 people per country will be questioned on several issues: the general acceptance of the developed technology, perception of advantages and disadvantages of the technologies, knowledge of the technologies, obstacles, data access and usage, ethical or privacy issues.

Will the PCP Competition End with one Winner?

Phase 3 of the Pre-Commercial Procurement is at the same time the last stage of the process. There are 2 contractors on stage which will be developing their solutions. The goal is to bring them to a high technology readiness level (TRL 8-9) to have a product that could be used by the end-users and sold to potential customers. It means there will be multiple winners.

Public transport operators and public buyers will have on the horizon the solutions that respond to their security-related challenges. Awarded companies have already developed their technologies and know-how, and will also be able to commercialise the solutions. Finally, assuming a successful implementation of tools to detect unattended items in public transport facilities. It can result in enhanced security of citizens and fewer crisis situations in which security forces are involved.

The successful completion of the work achieved during Phase 3 will be assessed by the Technical Management and Procurement Evaluation Committees at the end of the PREVENT PCP.

Then, the PREVENT PCP Public Buyers will consider a follow-up PPI (Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions) to award a limited set of prototypes and/or test products developed during this PCP procurement (“limited follow-up PPIs”). A follow-up PPI for a commercial volume of the innovative solutions developed in this PCP procurement will be subject to a new Call for Tenders.

We are proud to announce that PREVENT PCP received the sliver prize at Trophées Sécurité 2023 – the leading event for safety managers in France.

The 17^th edition of the conference gathered over 800 security-related specialists from SMEs, public entities and multinational companies at the Théâtre de la Madeleine in Paris. PREVENT PCP was presented by Région SUD, a partner of the consortium, which introduced the audience with the main objectives, scope and ideas behind the PCP initiative. 

The project was assessed by a jury composed of 18 head of security of major companies, such as Air France, Carrefour, Sanofi and Sodexo. The stakes of the competition were high – victory in the category: Large-scale projects. PREVENT PCP was praised for its ambition and the seriousness of its execution. Finally, this was enough to receive the silver prize! We are very proud, considering that our rivals were e.g. AIRBUS, Naval Group and other well-known brands.

In total, 80 companies participated in Trophées Sécurité 2023. The remaining competition categories included human protection, infrastructure solutions, decision-support systems for safety and co-construction. Special awards were also given.

(Photos: Manuel Abella for Républik Sécu)