The Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) trade processing system has already been operating along the U.S.-Canada border in Washington State, and now two more border crossings will be added to ACE to accommodate electronic filing of truck manifests-a dramatic improvement over the traditional paper-based filing system.

The Ambassador Bridge location along with two tunnels between Detroit and Windsor will come online in September, says the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency.

Customs said ACE was deployed on July 25 at a cluster of ports around Nogales, Arizona, including Douglas, Naco, Lukeville, and Sasabe, Arizona. By the end of 2006, Customs plans to have ACE operating at all northern and southern U.S. border crossings.

Recently, a Canadian industry group reported that delays for goods moving from Canada into the U.S. have increased by as much as 300 percent in the past several years, from 45 seconds per truck to two minutes and 15 seconds.