IMCOSEC follows a risk based approach to identify and characterize security gaps. Preventive measures will be discussed and a guiding concept for demonstrations in phase II will specify these measures to define an impact free and secure supply chain cost effectively and without impinging on performance. Every effort will be made to create a win-win solution between industry and supervision whereby the level of security is at an optimum level balancing effectiveness with practicability within the regulatory framework. Thus IMCOSEC will not aim to introduce as much security as possible, but rather as much as needed, suitable and acceptable.
A major objective of IMCOSEC is to determine a basic concept and roadmap for a large scale demonstration where intermodal chains (for containers and other ILUs) will be demonstrated as “secure” corridors with effective processes and state of the art information, security and component technologies. – The whole package should be acceptable to private end-users (e.g. carriers, shippers, transporters, terminal operators) and public end-users (e.g. customs authorities, port authorities, European regions including their legal authorities).
In order to reach the scientific and technological objectives mentioned above, IMCOSEC will be guided by the following approaches:

• Identification of security gaps based on the current processes (business-to-business, business-to-administration, administration-to-business) e.g. using the resilience matrix approach
• Elaboration of target processes for closing these gaps and ensuring product integrity is supported by technologies either already deployable or under development
• Identification of existing technologies to support and improve the container transport chain and integrate security
• Consideration of ongoing projects and their intended results (such as INTEGRITY and SmartCM from DG RTD on enhancing container supply chains) as well as parallel actions (such as the border protection demonstration programme and the GMES programme)
• Identification of additional requirements for R&D actions where these gaps cannot be closed by existing measures or research
• Provision of a roadmap for demonstration activities where target processes and supporting technologies can establish efficiency, effectiveness and acceptance
• Development of a guideline to improve existing or develop new technologies in order to meet the requirements given by the developed research roadmap