Executive Summary

This report describes an evaluation of the benefits and overall potential of technologies that may be used to collect truck travel time data in place of specialized onsite data collectors at border crossings between the U.S. and its neighbors – Mexico and Canada. The report identifies and examines various technologies whose characteristics make them potentially suited to collecting this type of data. In addition, the report also examines their maturity for deployment as well as certain other characteristics that affect their suitability for the intended purpose. The technologies are presented in terms of basic functionality, not detailed specifications. Therefore, the results are intended only as a guide.

The author has chosen to include the assessment of certain technologies that are in a development or prototype stage and thus not yet commercially available, but which have potential for automating the travel time process when developed. Some of the other technologies identified are currently used for other applications but should be capable of being adapted to perform in a manner that should achieve the necessary criteria. This technology assessment focuses principally on sensing technologies, not on the software needed to translate raw data into useful compilations.

No one sensing technology is a clear favorite; each candidate has to be weighed in terms of functionality, cost, concept and length of operations, maturity and availability as well as more mundane considerations like susceptibility to environmental degradation and vandalism.

Any follow-on studies should not be done in isolation from current homeland security concepts being discussed for border crossings. There will probably be very few installations of any of these technologies for the sole purpose of data collection. The technologies discussed in this report should be leveraged with those national security efforts, other federal inspection and trade agency initiatives and local operating efficiency enhancements in a mutually beneficial arrangement.

previous | next