This guide sets out COMPASS — the Cooperative Operations Model for Ports, Airports, and Surface Security — INTERPORTPOLICE's model for interagency cooperation for airport, port, and transportation security authorities. It is built for two operating realities that authorities face side by side: the routine, day-to-day coordination that keeps a shared security environment running smoothly, and the crisis or hostile-event coordination that is called on when something goes seriously wrong. The same relationships, principles, and structures serve both.

COMPASS draws on three sources of practice. The first is the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles (JESIP), the United Kingdom's doctrine for multi-agency emergency response, which COMPASS adapts and credits throughout. The second is A Multi-Sector Guide to Pandemic Economic Resilience, developed with the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and drawn on here for its cross-sector collaboration and relationship-mapping practices. The third is the statutory and regulatory framework that already requires interagency coordination at MTSA-regulated U.S. ports and TSA-regulated U.S. airports — a working model authorities can adapt rather than build from nothing.

Support the show

(C) 2026. All rights reserved. No duplication is authorized. No AI use is authorized.