Landscape Architecture in Protection of Pedestrian Zones Against Acts of Terrorism

Abstract

So far the fight against terrorism has focused on safeguarding crowds of people in enclosed spaces such as railway and underground stations or auditoriums. Special services have been dealing with this issue for many years. These days there appear new forms of terror e.g. vehicle-ramming into crowds of people. Recent months have brought an increase in the number of such tragic events. So far, we have witnessed six attacks in European cities with 127 people killed and 726 injured. The point of reference for these attacks is space and relations existing within it. The problem is that traffic zones and pedestrian zones are usually adjacent to each other and even there where is no direct contact between the two, there is still danger of a vehicle-ramming attack. Each large European city incorporates hundreds of kilometres of contact zones between pedestrian and vehicular traffic in their infrastructure. It is not possible to safeguard pedestrian zones along such a long contact line, however, we can protect large groups of people. GIS can provide basic tools for activities aimed at safeguarding people against this new form of terrorist acts. The method we have proposed using landscape architecture objects can be effective in protecting people in cities, in everyday situations and also at the time of large gatherings in public squares.