United States. Government Accountability Office
Published: 2020
Total Pages: 21
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The nation's surface transportation system includes nearly 140,000 miles of railroad track and 4 million miles of roads. It supports nearly 10 billion mass transit trips annually. The Transportation Security Administration secures, inspects, and assesses the surface transportation system—which may be vulnerable to terrorist and other threats because it is difficult to monitor and secure completely. This report examines the extent to which TSA’s plan and its implementation: (1) address known data limitations related to tracking surface inspector activities among non-surface modes, (2) align surface operations with risk assessments, and how, if at all, TSA ensures inspectors prioritize activities in high-risk modes and locations, and (3) establish performance targets for the surface inspector program. TSA has set goals for its inspection program, but it has not set measurable targets to assess how well its security activities are working or to guide needed changes. We recommended that TSA set these targets.