Interoperable simulation for protecting port as critical infrastructures

The research proposes an interoperable simulation framework to analyze and investigate security issue in complex maritime scenarios affected by asymmetric threats (i.e. terrorist attacks) with particular at ten ion to people and goods flows in Ports. The main aim is to support both decision makers and trainers in applyi ng operational and organizational security policies an d procedures and to assess the impact of these polici es on security efficiency in global flows of goods & peop le. Therefore the proposed framework is useful for the review, testing and certification of Ports Security Plans, Risk Assessments and Gaps Identification as well as for operators training. Due to the complexity of the Port system including several actors and infrastructures, the operations coordination is critical in order to face new asymm etric threats; so interoperable simulation combined with Intelligent Agents and Data Fusion techniques is an important approach in order to provide a set of simulation models cooperating in the same scenario and to simulate security procedures and policies. The authors provide a simulation federation to anal yze and test security procedures and regulations by proposing a case study based on the collision of tw hijacked ships within the port.