Travel Safety, Security & Risk Management: Why You're Doing it Wrong
Tony Ridley, MSc CSyP FSyI SRMCP
Group Manager Risk (incl. Resilience, Insurance & Internal Audit) | PhD Candidate, Researcher and Scholar
Crime, threats and harm tend to be concentrated in time and space, along with humans and human settlement(s).
That is, threats to human life safety and security are concentrated and most prevalent or foreseeable where humans live, work, socialise and relax.
Harm is predictively highly concentrated in specific locations and times, much higher than general crime occurrence across a neighbourhood or city(ies).
Therefore, travel safety, security and risk practices are predominately influenced and predicated upon human settlement or concentrations and a person(s) travelling to/from or between settlements.
In other words, where are you travelling to and from, and what other humans (in volume) will you encounter along the way that influence or contribute to your personal safety and security?
The premise remains relatively consistent for natural events too, as 'disasters' are rarely declared or considered a 'catastrophe' where human habitation or settlement is sparse. Therefore, what is safe or dangerous remains largely contingent on where humans are, what they are doing and how that impacts you and your environment.
A safe activity:
The probability of undesirable consequences is low and the supporting knowledge strong
Risk scientists and researchers go as far as to criticize many 'security' narratives and 'risk' calculations, due to the lack of specific travel risk metrics such as specified events, specified exposure, probabilities, vulnerabilities, controlling factors and a multitude of human decision factors or self-preservation actions whereby the individual consistently reevaluates and contributes to their own personal safety and security, irrespective of whatever broad, unspecified and routinely undeclared coloured and ranked country risk map is used or produced.
In other words, the country map has little to do with human mobility, choices, preferences, culture and the vast majority of hazards and harm that will likely impact the individual on a specific route, at a specific time, doing very specific things.
The following human density and population map further reinforce that reality.
Those producing, supporting, promulgating and consuming country 'risk maps' are, in essence, contributing to 99% pure waste.
Because the majority of people, travel, amenities, crime, threat, risk, safety and security issues only occur in 1-3% of locations, as researched and reinforced in the considerable, nascent body of knowledge that is crime concentration, reinforced by crime and data science(s). I empirically tested this myself on over 1 million business travel bookings. I've also constructed and modelled data sets using tens of thousands of data points on terrorism and deaths abroad, again, the same results. Even less when distributed across comparable timelines, mobility and travel vectors.
In other words, last year' or the year before's travel deaths, harm, crime, safety and security issues are all but guaranteed NOT to look anything like this year, next year or the one after that.
Moreover, it didn't take a pandemic to demonstrate or even reinforce these realities. Notwithstanding, year-on-year birthrates, lifespan and mortality figures, including crime, have been improving for the past two decades. The pandemic is disrupting and distorting that trend now, despite illnesses growing, further diluting the number of illnesses, harm or death while travelling on short or long-duration trips. The world's population has grown over time, too, again diluting crime, harm and risk factors because there is a greater base or population of people (traveller population and density remain highly variable, though), mainly negating historical threat or risk metrics to the point of complete unreliability or wholesale lack of relevance. Notwithstanding, the human migration that occurred during the height of the pandemic and those that immigrated locally, nationally or internationally.
In sum, you need to know where people live right now and how that is relevant to you, your travel and your activity(ies) at a specific location and time.
This is where the phenomenal work and insights of Terance Fosstodon (Associate Professor - Political Economy) Terence K. T. become an essential consideration for travel safety, security and risk management or exposure to harm, danger and threat(s).
So profound are Terence's data visualisation offerings, I consider them as disruptive to travel safety, security and risk management as Florence Nightingales' data visualisation and statistics were to medicine, public health and military operations. That is, the data visualisation is so clear and descriptive it should totally change the way we think and practice mobility analysis, travel safety or security and supporting risk management.
In sum, until now, most individuals, organisations and services have been doing travel risk management wrong.
You can find Terence's ongoing updates and works here:
So noticeable and evident are the following data visualisations, humans and their settlement(s) will appear little more than parasitic occupations of a much larger host.
For the remainder of this summation, I'll let Terence's visuals and findings do most of the communications, for if a picture is worth a thousand words, Terence provides millions of words, analysis and advice through his highly relevant data visualisations.
The above graphic was the result of Florence Nightingale's pioneering research and statistical analysis of real world phenomena, harm and distributed threat vectors. Terence has provided us similar insights with his work(s). As have other resources, such as Disaster Ninja and Kontur's geospatial intelligence and event correlation works.
Which in turn, shine a light on how poor and lacking in specific human population detail or relevance other popular 'maps" have been in recent year.
All of which flow into the continued risk theatre, storytelling, bias and semiotic nonsense associated with so many transnational and international safety, security and risk narratives. This includes terrorism.
The following data visuals start to unpack and refute prior geographical and cartography bias issues.
A threat, risk and safety map of the whole country would be both wrong and useless.
Recommended by LinkedIn
In sum, if you use or consume a country 'risk map', you're ill informed and inadequately understanding or evaluating human factors associated with travel, such as safety, security, crime, harm and risk(s).
Starting with a map, with data rich evidence, is your starting context. For 'standards' devotees, risk is determined by context. Therefore, generic, unrepresentative broad country risk discourse is not aligned with human existence, settlement and therefore the majority of safety, security and risk considerations.
Subsequently, travel safety, security or risk management practices based on country maps are wrong.
Because countries are largely 'empty' and unpopulated. Having researched this topic for decades, Terrance's maps now help communicate this clearly, succinctly and accurately. Now let's observe and measure the time and practice before countries, corporates, individuals and vendors do it "right", or at least, "better".
Read more, detailed analysis here:
Risk, Security, Safety, Resilience & Management Sciences