24 January 2000

Seamless borders nearing reality

The following article is excerpted from "The Journal of Commerce" issue of 19 January 2000.

U.S., Canadian and Mexican officials are experimenting with an array of intelligent transportation-system functions that could one day make crossing Nafta borders quicker and safer.

For example, U.S. officials are exploring new wireless applications that integrate global positioning satellites and ITS and allow relay of information about a vehicle long before it arrives at the border crossing.

The aim is to allow pre-clearance, so that drivers with clean records won't need to be inspected unless customs agents feel the need, according to Dan Brady, vice president at Transborder and Trade Corridor Systems, San Diego, which is an ITS integrator.

He said there is hope of setting up a pilot program early next year using this wireless technology at the Otay Mesa truck crossing east of Tijuana.

New US-Canada corridor considered

On the Canadian border, the Nafta Land Transportation Subcommittee is exploring opening a corridor between New York and Montreal to relieve trade crossings at Detroit, Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

ITS will be key to "speeding up traffic while giving (this effort) a definite safety focus," said Norman Schneider, director of the Passenger and Freight Safety Division of the New York State Department of Transportation.

"Earlier efforts have focused more on relieving congestion than on safety," he said.

ITS offers the opportunity to collect a great deal of data on shipments, carriers and drivers.

Brady said his company is "looking at trying to develop a data file on drivers and vehicles and carriers with regard to safety, as well as how to integrate those systems on each side of the (U.S.-Mexican) border."

The company is working closely with motor carrier associations on both sides of the border to ensure "what we're doing is appropriate and has the support of the motor carrier industry," Brady said. He said similar work is taking place between the United States and Canada.

Need for cooperation, standards development

Much of this work fits the U.S. government's vision of a seamless transportation system throughout the Western Hemisphere, where trucks and passenger vehicles can travel without stopping at borders for customs, safety checks and any other clearance.

"We want to be able to go from Mexico City to Vancouver seamlessly, meaning you don't stop at borders, you don't need to be stopped to be weighed or even inspected," said Fenton Carey, associate administrator for innovation, research and education at the U.S. Research and Special Programs Administration....

Motor safety act to accelerate activities

Although much of the work of implanting ITS at border crossings is still in the talking stages, officials from the United States, Mexico and Canada predict that these activities will increase with the recent passage of the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999.

"This isn't as much a funding question as getting people to work together," said Carey. "The technology is there. The question is how to get innovation into practice."

Many players will have to be satisfied before seamless travel will become a reality throughout the Nafta region, let alone the hemisphere, said Lewis Sabounghi, a consultant and secretary of the Canadian advisory committee on ITS standards.

He said ITS border clearance won't be a reality until customs, immigration, bridge operators, departments of transportation and other government agencies are satisfied that safety and security will be maintained through advanced technology.

Needed by agencies: sophisticated transponder

What's required to meet the criteria of all of these assorted government agencies and authorities is a sophisticated transponder that can handle a variety of ITS applications, Sabounghi said.

Transponders are the mechanisms that transmit messages from a truck or car to a toll or weigh station, for example. Although the technology exists for this purpo