Volpe Center Highlights - Summer 2005
Security
Director's Notes |
Dr. Kaveeshwar: First RITA Administrator |
Focus |
Safety
Mobility |
Security |
Contributions to TRB |
Published and Presented
The Department of Energy asked the Volpe Center to assess TRANSCOM, the tracking system that is used to monitor and communicate with vehicles transporting "high-priority" unclassified shipments.
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Assessment of Hazardous Waste Shipment Tracking System (DOE)
The Volpe Center recently delivered a final report, "DOE Shipment Tracking System Assessment," to the Department of Energy (DOE) Director of the Office of Transportation in the Office of Environmental Management. The DOE has worked for more than 20 years with state and tribal governments to develop transportation programs for safely moving the nation's hazardous wastes to storage sites. Accordingly, the DOE developed the Transportation Tracking and Communications (TRANSCOM) system to monitor and communicate with vehicles transporting "high-visibility" unclassified shipments of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste. TRANSCOM is a Web-based system that provides in-transit monitoring information needed by state and tribal governments.
Given the advances in tracking technologies in recent years, the DOE asked the Volpe Center to assess the functional effectiveness of TRANSCOM and determine whether other tracking systems, methods, or applications might be more cost effective than the current TRANSCOM system in fulfilling its mission.
Volpe's assessment included: an examination of the DOE business process of monitoring radioactive shipments; discussions with DOE shippers, state and tribal governments, and other users of the TRANSCOM system; and a review of current practices, systems, and state-of-the-art technology in shipment tracking in private industry and other parts of the federal government. The Volpe team found that TRANSCOM does meet its functional requirements and has a large number of satisfied users, and recommended that the system be fully maintained, updated, and improved to meet current and future DOE requirements. Ms. Ruth Hunter, Ms. Nancy A. Cooney, and Mr. Kenneth Troup (now retired) of the Office of Information and Logistics Management contributed to the report.
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