Transport and terrorism - technology to the rescue

By: Drivers.com staff

Date: Thursday, 05. October 2006

"No liquids or gels of any kind will be permitted in carry-on baggage"

The sudden crackdown the other day at one of the World's busiest airports understandably obliterated other news about transportation security from the mainstream media. For a few days, everything was passenger delays, images of discarded shampoo, suntan lotion, creams, tooth paste, hair gels and so on.

However, inevitably the media whiplashed back to an issue that is, in the long run, more urgent and more contentious: what do we do, right now, about critical security in all the areas of transportation, from ships to trucks to planes and trains?

It's headline news when passengers are inconvenienced as they were at Heathrow and other airports recently. Less in the news, but potentially more important, is the issue of the massive quantities of goods that need to be examined, scanned, listed, tracked and logistically managed every hour of every day at airports, seaports and trucking depots around North America and the world.

At the heart of this issue are the essential elements of political will, money and technology. The latter will be the subject of a Cargo Security Forum in Washington, D.C. this coming September 6th and 7th.

The forum is the 5th of an annual series organized by the London-based EyeForTransport group. The group specializes in bringing together the movers and shakers in the application of technology, particularly Telematics technology, to logistics and transportation.

The Washington Forum will feature representatives at the political level (notably Senator Patty Murry, a former Chair of the Senate Transportation Appropriations subcommittee ), top security officials from the DOT, the FBI and the the U.S. Navy, and senior security and loss prevention directors from major transportation carriers such as DHS, FedEx Express, American River International, Purolator, Canadian National Railway, and the U.S. Postal service.

Forum organizer Dave Thomas of EyeForTransport expect this years session to be pushed into a higher gear given the current storm of interest generated by the foiled terror plot in the UK.

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