Innovation, transport security and supply chains: a review

The recent decades have witnessed a progressive increase of global supply chains that have been related to most produced goods. Within this phenomenon, transport security has gained more and more importance, also because of the threats coming from organised crime and international terrorist groups. In this context, many stimuli have fostered investments on innovative technologies involving all transport modes. Some innovations are mode-specific while others are common to all of them, as in the case of cyber-security. On the basis of a thorough review of the literature, the main aim of the paper is to consider the impact of transport security innovations on supply chains, especially in terms of time and of economic costs. It emerges that momentous consequences can be generated by a security breach for all the firms and regions whose economic activities are reliant on the supply chain. The main implications of the analysis are that it is then necessary a coordination and collaboration among several private and public stakeholders, not only at the local and national level, but also at the supranational level. Moreover, the trade-off which may exist between the implementation of stricter security protocols and the impact on the speed and on the cost of supply chain activities must be taken into account.