Research On Simulation Modelling For Border Security Patrolling Strategy Based On GIS And VBA

Homeland security is one of the biggest concerns in every single county.The border security is among the homeland security issues,and seized the eyes of governments as well as the citizens in each country.Border security incorporates both lands,maritime,and country borders.After the attack on September 11th,2001,more strict regulations were taken in most entry ports.More and more illegal infiltrations have to be made through inland border as a result.However,the border line for U.S.and Canada or U.S.and Mexico are quite long rendering it difficult to patrol every part of it.Worse still,in aforementioned research on it,the geographical information hasn’t been taken into consideration,which makes them somewhat unaccurate.In order to provide a patrolling model with succinct view and provide problem shooting solutions to ensure the border safety better,integrating GIS with simulation is of great importance.In this paper,therefore,we aim to improve the working efficiency of the border patrol system via simulation under its limited resources based on geographical information system.This paper deeply studied the border patrolling problem based on the summary and analysis of previous border patrol strategy researches.The main work includes the following four aspects:(1)Proposed a kind of patrol routing and resource distributing problem for border patrol.Through the analysis of the real background of this problem,this paper proposed a kind of alternative generation problem for emergency response based on the border patrol system in south Texas.(2)Constructed a basic simulation model.First,the specific description of the problem is provided and the target area is determined;second,the model’s main assumption,key variables,parameter settings and the obtainment process of GIS data are presented;finally,simplified flowcharts and validation of the basic simulation model are given.(3)An open-loop simulation model and a closed-loop simulation model for the patrol system of south Texas have been developed based on the data derived from Geographic Information System(GIS)software.For the open-loop model,design of experiments is carried out for factorial analysis to figure out the effect of each single factor and interaction between every two factors.For the closed-loop model,this paper conducts sensitivity analysis to three main manipulated variables.Usual infiltration in small batch and rare large-scale infiltration are considered in both models,and the closed-loop model proves to work better when considering both situations.(4)Visual Basic Application(VBA)programming is mainly employed to manipulate the exchange of GIS data between Arena and Excel,so that an automatic route selection model could be developed.This model is more flexible that more real conditions,such as different speed limits and checkpoints,could be integrated.In all,this paper provides a creative approach for addressing the border security problems and operation strategies for border patrol in south Texas area,and also paves the way for further research in this regard.The models constructed in this paper could be applied to most patrol system and also other problems closely related to routing selection and resource distribution,such as disaster response,logistics delivery,etc.