Security and Efficiency: Dueling Priorities at the Border?

Click here to write a Letter to the Editor.

img src="/sites/default/files/images/articles/printeditiontag_new.gif" width=120 align=right>Can the government utilize technology to promote security and expedite trade across Nafta borders? The answer seems to be a qualified yes, according to officials involved in a long-running project designed to achieve those goals.

One link in a secure "chain of custody" could be put into everyday use today, say the officials. That's the tracking of tractor-trailers and their loads using intelligent transportation systems (ITS) technology, which has been successfully tested in Washington state since 1997, according to Ed McCormack, the state's project manager for ITS Freight Projects.

he tracking is accomplished through the combined use of transponders, antennae or "readers" that read the signals emitted by the transponders, and the Internet.

This article appears in the Oct. 7 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.