According to a senior DOT official, who under new DOT policy can't be quoted on security matters, the transport agency is already committed to marrying two successful federally backed technology pilot programs: CargoMate for tracking and e-seals to prevent tampering. He says combining the technologies and methods these pilots have provided in recent field-testing will hopefully lower the odds that containers can be used as a Trojan horse.

The DOD's role in this pilot is still being determined, he says. However, at this writing, the DOT reports the two agencies "are moving in the direction" of a joint effort.

CargoMate, which has been operative in pilot phase for at least two years at the ports of New York/New Jersey, utilizes a combination of radio frequency identification technology and global positioning systems to promote real-time chassis tracking.

E-seals, short for electronic seals, is being tested at the ports of Tacoma/Seattle in Washington State to prevent container tampering. E-seals are metal bolts with radio transmission devices embedded. In the event of tampering, a radio frequency signal alert is sent to a central communication center, says Ed McCormack, project manager for the state of Washington intelligent transportation system freight projects.

According to the DOT, this new pilot would involve the reconfiguration of the chassis data gate that serves as the communications platform for the chassis/tractor combination so that it could, "read the e-seal as the container is placed on the chassis. The e-seal number would then be integrated with the chassis identifying information, the container number and manifest number and would have the potential to track the cargo through its delivery cycle on truck, rail or in terminals. They aren't working together [like this] yet."

John Mohler, vice president of business development for Par Technology Corp. in New Hartford, N.Y., which developed CargoMate, says tests on converging the two pilots will start in the fall. There's hope that by early 2003, tests will be carried out on hundreds of containers and chassis from ports in the U.S. and Europe, he says.

Plopping an e-seal on a container doesn't pose much difficulty. More complicated, Mohler says, is how to track chassis while en route and communicate in real-time between a container yard, truck dispatcher, warehouse and the actual driver doing the hauling. You can communicate inside a port with RFID scanners but he says, "Outside the port they're useless because you don't have the readers."

According to Mohler, the answer has been to turn the chassis into a communication platform so there's real-time visibility of the container if it's on the chassis: "All you have to do is put a reader in the chassis box along with a GPS device, and an RFID tag on the container along with the e-seal [to prevent tampering]," he says. "You use cellular communication and then you can communicate to the world at all times."

In early summer, Mohler received word Par Technology had received approximately $1.1 million from DOT to convert CargoMate from a supply chain pilot to one designed to thwart terrorism. He says the company was planning to equip 50 containers with security devices and 50 with RFID devices starting in mid-fall. By spring, they're hoping to be deploying "hundreds."

He believes this project will be integrated into a joint DOT/DOD test between the U.S. and Europe scheduled to take place in the mid-to-late fall. Citing security reasons for sketchy details, Mohler says only the test locations will be a port in Virginia and a port in Europe.