Exploring the Consequences of IED Deployment with a Generalized Linear Model Implementation of the Canadian Traveller Problem

TL;DR

This paper models IED deployment along roads using a generalized linear model approach inspired by the Canadian Traveller Problem, incorporating social network analysis concepts to predict and update deployment probabilities over time.

Contribution

It introduces a novel GLM-based framework for modeling IED deployment that integrates betweenness centrality and expert judgment, extending to dynamic estimation over multiple time steps.

Findings

Effective modeling of IED deployment probabilities

Incorporation of social network analysis into threat assessment

Framework for updating deployment estimates over time

Abstract

The deployment of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) along major roadways has been a favoured strategy of insurgents in recent war zones, both for the ability to cause damage to targets along roadways at minimal cost, but also as a means of controlling the flow of traffic and causing additional expense to opposing forces. Among other related approaches (which we discuss), the adversarial problem has an analogue in the Canadian Traveller Problem, wherein a stretch of road is blocked with some independent probability, and the state of the road is only discovered once the traveller reaches one of the intersections that bound this stretch of road. We discuss the implementation of ideas from social network analysis, namely the notion of "betweenness centrality", and how this can be adapted to the notion of deployment of IEDs with the aid of Generalized Linear Models (GLMs): namely, how we can model the probability of an IED deployment in terms of the increased effort due to Canadian betweenness, how we can include expert judgement on the probability of a deployment, and how we can extend the approach to estimation and updating over several time steps.