Measuring Border Delay and Crossing Times at the US–Mexico Border
Final Report
Automated Crossing and Wait Time Measurement

FORWARD

In December 2007, FHWA initiated a pilot project to assess, select, and implement technology appropriate for the measurement of travel times for US-bound trucks crossing into the United States from Mexico. The technology selected was radio frequency identification (RFID) and the international land border crossing chosen for this implementation was the Bridge of the Americas (BOTA) Port of Entry (POE) at El Paso, Texas/Juarez, Mexico.

The specific objectives of the project were to:

• Assess the effectiveness of RFID technology for automated measurement of travel time for vehicles crossing the border.
• Gather historical travel time data.

The project expanded to include included another POE, the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and additional RFID installations both at BOTA and Pharr-Reynosa that enabled measurement of a different type of travel time. The results of the work summarized in this Final Report constitute Part II of a two-part effort. Part I, which this report builds upon, was a task conducted in 2006-2007 that focused on an initial technology trade-off study that identified detection technologies for measuring border travel times. Electronic copies of the Part I and Part II reports are available from FHWA.

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