NTS’s security team recently participated in a US-UK-India government technical exchange on the secure transport of radioactive materials, at the Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership, Delhi. 

NTS attended at the invitation of the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and were joined by experts from the US National Nuclear Security Administration, US national laboratories, and the Indian Department of Atomic Energy. 

This was the first substantive trilateral engagement on nuclear security issues between the countries since the start of the Covid pandemic, and an opportunity to revitalise international collaboration on the important topic of transport security. 

NTS’s Matt Fox, Specialist Security Advisor; Tony Brown, Security Manager; and Alex Barrow, Global Development Lead; were joined by Superintendent Tim Needham from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, who provide specialist armed police escorts for some NTS transport operations. The team shared our joint experience and good practices in protecting radioactive materials in transit by land, sea and air from a variety of threats. 

Participants at the event exchanged practices, approaches and lessons learned on a range of issues including national regulatory regimes, threat assessment, security risk management and route selection, and conducted tabletop exercises to test different approaches. 

Alex Barrow, Global Development Lead for Security and Resilience at NTS, said:

“It was a privilege to support this important event in India on behalf of the UK. As well as demonstrating the world-leading capability of NTS in radioactive material transport security, this was a valuable opportunity to learn from the experiences of others in India and the USA. We hope to build on this dialogue and hold further exchanges in the near future.”

NTS will continue to share our knowledge and experience of delivering safe, secure and reliable nuclear transport services to support the UK government and other partners around the world in ensuring the highest standards of nuclear and radioactive material security.