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Safe At Sea


Private industry takes the lead with technology to secure the nation's ports

By Eileen Colkin Cuneo
InformationWeek
April 7, 2003 12:00 AM (From the April 7, 2003 issue)

More than 90% of world trade travels in containers aboard ocean-going ships. About 20 million containers move through 220 ports around the globe every year. Six million enter U.S. ports each year-that's 17,000 a day. Any stop along the way could be an opportunity for a terrorist to slip something destructive into one of those containers.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, port operators, carriers, companies that ship goods, and other businesses involved in ocean transport have spent millions of dollars coordinating their security efforts. But they complain that government agencies charged with securing the country's borders and transport systems have yet to fully address security concerns, and some fear that the Transportation Security Administration, which is just beginning to study the issue, may undercut their efforts with incompatible technologies or requirements.

"It's frustrating ... that more hasn't been done," says Steve Sewell, president of PB Ports & Marine Inc., which provides engineering services to the shipping industry. "There doesn't seem to be the focus or agreement on security that's needed. That applies not only to the U.S. government but to other governments whose ports are sending containers to the U.S."

Businesses have plenty of reasons to move forward with their own plans: No company wants its name on a container, ship, or port that becomes a terrorist vehicle. And they expect the technologies that track and protect goods for security reasons to provide greater visibility into supply chains and better management capabilities, and to help speed goods through customs and other checkpoints along the way.

JAMES EDMONDS PHOTO

The Port of Houston Authority is counting on technology to keep cargo safe, chairman Edmonds says.
The Port of Houston Authority last week became the 64th company to join Smart and Secure Tradelanes, a group at the forefront of implementing technologies and procedures to secure ocean-transported goods. It includes five port operators that account for 78% of the world's container trade, five ship operators, 15 importers, five industry consultants, and several technology suppliers and port authorities, including eight in the United States.

The Port of Houston is the second-largest petrochemical complex in the world, with 150 plants and $15 billion in capital investment, so authority chairman James Edmonds has reason to be interested in extra security. "We move 1.2 million containers through here each year," he says. "If this technology will help us ensure and secure the cargo in those containers, we want to see it."

Smart and Secure Tradelanes, known as SST, was launched last summer, but its roots go back to just after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when the Department of Defense opened its Total Asset Visibility network for commercial use. This wireless real-time-response cargo-tracking system, the largest in the world, was developed seven years ago to track all military goods shipped by truck, train, and ship, from factory to foxhole. SST, which gets input from government agencies, particularly the Customs Service, is expanding the Defense Department's infrastructure to include commercial ports and vessels. It's also adopting Total Asset Visibility network technologies, such as radio-frequency identification, satellite tracking, and biometrics.

The effort was founded and, so far, is funded by three foreign companies-Hutchinson Port Holdings, P & O Ports, and the Port of Singapore Authority-that operate 68 of the world's ports. SST is wrapping up its initial project, a $10 million test using RFID technology from Savi Technology Inc. and components from 14 other vendors, with 15 carriers that ply 11 major trade lanes.

It works like this: A shipment of computer chips from China is packed at a consolidation center in Hong Kong. A U.S. Customs agent at the center verifies the container's contents and electronically seals the container with an RFID-enabled bolt that will communicate the container's location to readers within 300 feet as it moves from the consolidation center, through the port, onto the ship, to any port at which the ship stops, and finally to its destination port.

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