Ensuring safe cities, stadiums, and public viewing events at mega-events

A summer filled with sports in 2024 has now come to an end. The Olympics and the European Football Championship packed stadiums and drew hundreds of thousands of fans into city centres and to large public viewing areas. In this review, Christian Schneider explores where spectators were particularly well-protected and how we might further enhance the resilience of public spaces using proven security strategies.

Security risks at large events

When over 300,000 people gather nearly every day in packed flocks, grouped by their nationality at pre-defined locations to celebrate, it unfortunately may become more than just a cheerful party; it also represents a luring opportunity for extremists to attack those soft targets. Terror organisations worldwide eagerly welcome such occasions, as highlighted in 
the call “To the stadiums”, by the Islamic State, in April 2024. Here, attackers can, with minimal effort and low detection risk, ram vehicles into dense crowds in single or 
multiple waves in a manner reminiscent of attacks that already proved fatal and famous in Nice, France and Berlin Christmas market, Germany.     

Crowded city centres and public viewing sites are particularly attractive targets, and the crowds at publicly accessible locations and surrounding stadiums are especially at risk.

The threat of vehicle ram attacks

The disproportionate rise in vehicular attacks in recent years (RAND, 2022) is both trivial and pragmatic: Large Goods Vehicles are the most efficient terror weapon (Al Qaida 2011, Islamic State 2016). Not only on the continent, vehicles are advantageous over the use of other deadly weapons in terror attacks, employing a known guerrilla warfare tactic (Gaynor, B. 2002) called the prevention paradox. The guiding principle for such terrorist actions is simple: an asymmetrical risk-resource-benefit ratio that favours the attackers.     

In essence, using vehicles as weapons is cheap (resources), simple (detection risk), and effective (benefit). Such attacks require neither complex planning (resources, risk) nor high-level expertise (resources) to inflict significant injury or even fatalities, attracting widespread media attention (benefit). In contrast, effective protection measures are hindered by the prevention paradox, which works to extremists’ advantage. Since, “There is no glory in prevention” (Rose, G. 1985), effective protective measures, require considerable application expertise (resources), well-designed organisational systems (resources), and effective vehicle security barriers (resources). Reliable countermeasures are neither trivial to plan nor to implement (resources). Moreover, with tight prevention budgets and widespread disaster fatigue, the often-unseen benefit of reliable protection efforts must be argued for through time-intensive justification procedures (cost, proficiency, resources).

Positive trends in Hostile Vehicle Mitigation

Fortunately, the good news is that most cities, stadiums, and public viewing events surveyed on the continent have shown notable improvements in terms of Hostile Vehicle Mitigation (HVM) in recent years! This could be attributed to tireless and foresighted awareness campaigns published by the NPSA, NaCTSO, UNOCT and the media following the more than 140 hostile vehicle attacks around the world since 2014 (NPSA, 2024), which are now bearing fruit, albeit with room for improvement.

Fortunately, the once-popular yet highly hazardous concrete blocks are increasingly being replaced by properly certified (ISO22343-1, ISO IWA 14-1, PAS68) Vehicle Security Barriers (VSB) barriers. Yet, eight years after the Nice and Berlin attacks, still, more often than not proven application expertise (ISO22343-) carried out by suitably qualified and experienced persons, e.g. certified HVM-Specialist Security Advisors (RSES), keeps on to be the exception. Even worse, a rising number of new businesses are making money by lulling event organisers and spectators into a false and, in some cases, fatal promise of security.

The main challenge: professional planning and implementation of measures

Why, it must be asked, is HVM still considered in many places as a form of event technology? Is it possibly to avoid informing mostly public clients of the applicable civil engineering and built environment regulations? Why are increasing numbers of unqualified “experts” entering the market, aiming to make quick money with glossy brochures and bold promises despite lacking peer reviewed expertise in construction, physics, HVM, and engineering?     

This dangerous mix poses significant risks and liability also for these clients, especially if courts may soon have to address issues of deficiencies or, in the worst case, fatalities. HVM may not be rocket science, but still it is far from a trivial undertaking. Internationally, it is well recognised that HVM is not a product range but a subfield within civil engineering and counter terrorism (CPNI 2013, UNOCT 2022, NPSA, RIBA & CPI 2023). In short, protecting against global terrorist groups requires relevant experience in engineering and specialised civil construction, coupled with in-depth knowledge of HVM and global networks.     

This holds true especially with the noticeable shortcomings of portable vehicle security barriers applied in Europe this summer. These portable VSBs were often deployed so unprofessionally wrong that, in the event of a serious attack, they could not have the slightest chance to fulfil their protective function.     

Especially portable VSBs must not only be properly certified but, further importantly, suited to their intended containment capacity, the surface they are placed on and their mode of function. Both the installers of these barriers and the often-unqualified planners better ought to critically assess their own engineering background in physics, mechanical engineering, and technical standards, before continuing to promote uninformed decisions and installations of VSBs.

Qualification and experience are essential

Quality stems from qualification! What is a given in other areas of daily life has yet to fully establish itself in HVM (or would you go to seek medical advice from a pharmaceutical manufacturers sales outlet rather than from qualified doctors and pharmacists?).     

There is no way around it: those planning and implementing HVM must have solid technical training in the field of HVM, a strong foundation in construction and mechanical engineering, and stay up-to-date with international standards (CPD). The globally recognised gold standard not only for peer reviewed HVM specialists is the relevant list of experts administered by the Register of Security Engineers and Specialists (RSES). Clients seeking HVM are strongly advised to accept no less in the interest of security.     

Best practices in professional security architecture can be found worldwide in projects where impartial planners from construction engineering work alongside certified RSES specialists to plan, specify, tender, and implement protection measures according to the relevant standards and guidelines.

German Best Practice: Stuttgart “Neckar Stadium”

The HVM measures applied for Stuttgart’s Euros Stadium deserve special mention. Stuttgart’s HVM measures protected the stadium at the highest level, doing so both economically and innovatively.     

The most state-of-the-art HVM barriers at Stuttgart’s Neckar Stadium provide high level certified resilience. Even unbraked 30-tonne lorries ramming into the VSBs at a speed of 80 km/h (50mph) would barely damage these barriers. The project and planning team achieved this impressive level of protection cleverly by not only deploying the latest generation of barriers but even more importantly, by following the international HVM norm (ISO 22343-2) and the relevant guidelines published by the NPSA, ensuring compatibility with sustainability, discreet aesthetics, and accessibility for public transport, cyclists, and pedestrians, while also considering Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and vandalism resistance considerations.

Thus, high-performance VSBs that allow greenery, tamper-proof control cabinets, and affordable sliding beams are contemporary features at the Neckar Stadium. The interdisciplinary project team designed the protective zone around the stadium with foresight, ensuring that visitors will continue to be also optimally protected at future Bundesliga football matches to come and future mega-events within the well-protected apron surrounding the stadium.

Conclusion with confidence

The 2024 Euros was not only a major sporting event but also a stress test for security architectures. While some weaknesses became apparent, there were also highly commendable strengths. When it comes to protecting soft targets from vehicular attacks, it became clear that HVM is a demanding, physical-technical discipline of construction and should therefore ideally be handled by experienced specialist security advisors and civil engineers following established construction plan of work. The example of Stuttgart’s Neckar Stadium and many others demonstrate this.     

Whether for temporary or permanent HVM measures, quality and security do not emerge from colourful brochures but from the fundamental principles, regulations, and processes inherent in the construction industry. With the right preparation and interdisciplinary, impartial project teams, we can integrate urban future challenges and HVM in such a way that we create broad and most economic synergies previously barely considered.