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Volpe Center Highlights - March/April 2002

Director's Notes

Director's Notes | Focus | Safety | Mobility | Human and Natural Environment
Economic Growth | National Security | Papers and Presentations

Ensuring the Safety and Security of Ports

Over the past months, tragic events have heightened concerns about the vulnerabilities of ports and borders. The Volpe Center has joined several federal, state, and private organizations in seeking methods of enhancing homeland security in port areas while facilitating international commerce.

The Center is collaborating with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Technical Support Working Group of the Combating Terrorism Technology Support Office of the Department of Defense (CTTSO/TSWG) in Operation Safe Commerce. This innovative public and private partnership responds to the twin imperatives for border security and facilitated flows of legitimate international commerce. Key federal, state, and private entities in the United States and Canada are working together through this partnership to construct a prototype of a secure international trade corridor. The partnership is officially organized as the Law Enforcement Coordinating Council Operation Safe Commerce Committee.

The goal is to maintain open borders and facilitate commerce while improving security practices by using point-of-origin security, in-transit transparency and accountability, and data query capability designed to validate and facilitate the movement of legitimate containerized cargo. Operation Safe Commerce has three major thrusts: 1) push the borders back to the manufacturer and validate security at the point of origin; 2) pilot the use of off-the-shelf technologies to monitor the movement of legitimate cargo; and 3) focus on securing the supply chain supporting the movement of international commercial cargo containers. The Volpe Center, in support of the partnership, has been responsible for assessing the state-of-the-art in tracking, sensor, and intrusion technologies for application to container shipments. A set of these technologies will be demonstrated on an actual container shipment from central Europe to New England in the coming months. The Volpe Center is also analyzing the supply chain process as typified by this demonstration.

This issue of Highlights features a project related to port protection that the Center is performing for the CTTSO/TSWG. A Volpe team is designing and constructing the prototype Vessel Identification and Position System, which will enhance real-time, situation awareness capabilities in ports.

We are proud to support these homeland security efforts and will continue to serve as needed to help safeguard critical facilities and operations.

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