Gateways and Borders

The United States imports and exports more goods across its borders than any other country in the world. FHWA's Office of Freight Management and Operations works with its partners to develop policies and encourage deployment of technologies and best practices to facilitate the safe, secure, and efficient flow of goods at borders and trade gateways.

America's Freight Transportation Gateways (November 2009) [HTML, PDF 2MB]
Freight Information Real-Time System for Transport Evaluation [Final Report]
United States - Mexico
- Border-Wide Assessment of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Technology—Current and Future Concepts [HTML, PDF 1.8MB]
- Measuring Border Delay and Crossing Times at the U.S. – Mexico Border — Part II: Guidebook for Analysis and Dissemination of Border Crossing Time and Wait Time Data [HTML, PDF 723KB] *There is no published document for Part I of this research.
- Measuring Border Delay and Crossing Times at the U.S. – Mexico Border — Part II: Step-by-Step Guidelines for Implementing a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) System to Measure Border Crossing and Wait Times [HTML, PDF 1.1MB] *There is no published document for Part I of this research.
- Measuring Border Delay and Crossing Times at the U.S. – Mexico Border — Final Report: Automated Crossing and Wait Time Measurement [HTML, PDF 4.9MB]
United States - Canada
- Effort to Test, Evaluate and Deploy Technologies to Automate the Measurement of Real-Time Border Wait Times at United States - Canada Land Border Crossings [HTML, PDF 1.4MB]
- Comparing a Year of Legal Inbound Travel: The United States and Canada - 2009 [PDF 5.7MB]
- Border Information Flow Architecture [HTML, PDF 190KB]
- Advancing US-Canada Border Transportation Planning and Programming [PDF 681KB]
- Washington State-British Columbia International Mobility Trade Corridor, ITS-CVO Border Crossing Deployment Evaluation Draft Final Report [Executive Summary]

Border Wait-Time Technology Noteworthy Practices

States and local government agencies are deploying border wait time technologies to successfully address congestions at the land ports of entry. These practices have the capacity to facilitate the safe, secure, and efficient flow of goods at borders and trade corridors. Highlighted are two noteworthy practices at the U.S./Canada northern border:

FHWA Office of Planning Programs

Border Crossing Delay

Border crossings are potential bottlenecks in the freight transportation network. The Office of Freight Management and Operations conducted a systematic review of border crossing activities at 7 ports-of-entry handling over 60 percent of U.S. truck trade among the 3 NAFTA nations in order to determine border delay and crossing times for freight.

Transportation Border Working Group

The Canada-U.S. Transportation Border Working Group (TBWG) brings together multiple transportation and border agencies, and other organizations, to coordinate transportation planning, policy implementation, and the deployment of technology to enhance border infrastructure and operations. [This link is no longer active. The website has been taken down and is being revamped.]

Staff Contacts

Tiffany Julien
202-366-9241
Tiffany.Julien@dot.gov