Rail freight and motor carrier security were examined. Testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee's March 23rd hearing on transportation security, K. Jack Riley, director of Rand Corp.'s public safety and justice program noted the notion that security will be perfect and complete is flawed. Reporting on a study commissioned and published in cooperation with the Orange North American Trade Rail Access Corridor (OnTrac) Joint Powers Authority and the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. (LAEDC), Chris Becker, OnTrac executive director, noted a disruption that would shut down the Alameda Corridor East could cost $414 million per day. There are 230,000 kilometers of rail lines in the U.S., according to the report. Security must be improved along key transit points, and the report's authors suggest a portion of customs revenues collected at the ports be used to finance the improvements.
Meanwhile, trucking interests stepped up their commitment to security. The American Trucking Associations (ATA) announced on March 22nd it had entered into a $19.3 million agreement wit the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to expand its Highway Watch security training and awareness program.
ATA plans to expand its call-in center to handled increased calls and will coordinate it with state Amber Alert missing children programs. Highway Watch was actually begun in 1998 as a joint project of the ATA and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
How's your security?
Have you joined C-TPAT? Did you complete your risk assessment? Have you hardened potential targets? Logistics Today and Iowa State University are conducting an anonymous study of logistics security. Reviewing and completing the survey will provide a useful checklist of security needs, which can be benchmarked against industry practices when the final results are tallied. To participate in this important study, go to: http://www.logisticstoday.com/securitymgt.asp All individual responses are kept confidential.
