Taking Command & Control
Technology will enhance homeland security and trucking.
JOHN BENDEL
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
Everything looks different since September 11, 2001, especially the trucking technologies first embraced for productivity gain; now we look to them for security. And the vendors who first promised to save us money, now look for ways to save us from thieves, hijackers and terrorists.
The turnabout in viewpoint is not new to Qualcomm, Inc. The San Diego-based mobile communications pioneer learned almost a decade ago that their OmniTRACS satellite communication system -- intended to increase fleet efficiency, better customer service and lower operating costs -- was bought by some customers for protection against criminals.
According to Marc Sands, vp and counsel for Qualcomm's Wireless Business Solutions Div., Qualcomm experienced the attitude change in South America.
Sands explained that after initial success in U.S. trucking, Qualcomm started a joint venture in Brazil offering the same benefits to Brazilian fleets. The joint venture is called OmniSat. The modified OmniTRACS product is called AUTOTRAC.
But in Brazil it became obvious that truckers were less concerned with efficiency than with protection from thieves and hijackers.
"They have been enhancing the basic system with add-on features to address security as the primary use of the OmniTRACS system," said Sands.
"They're security-focused. They work closely with risk management companies to prevent as well as respond to cargo theft or hijacking," he said.
Brazilian modifications in AUTOTRAC include emergency response capabilities, component tamper resistance, on-board intelligence, vehicle disabling and security oriented back-office software.
"Some of the emergency response components are things that we already do here in the U.S., such as panic buttons," said Sands.
Panic buttons, alerts that can be activated by drivers, are used extensively by munitions carriers working for the Department of Defense, he explained.
Qualcomm's focus on security has worked in Brazil, Sands said.
"They've had some very significant success in reducing cargo theft and hijacking that represent millions and millions of dollars. The system is basically mandatory for a lot of cargo shipments because of the high risk. In fact, if you don't have this kind of system you won't get insured," said Sands.
Since September 11th, Qualcomm is looking to Brazil for North American security enhancements.
"They've added a number of features that we ... could add here that make it more difficult to disable a system. They also pursued on-board intelligence to tap into various sensors on the truck and receive information in the event those sensors are triggered. That can be a two-way exchange. One area in particular they use is vehicle disabling," said Sands.
While Qualcomm's U.S. back office software generally involves productivity, the back-office software in Brazil is more focused on security.
"They use applications such as geo-fencing so alerts go off if a truck goes outside of its route. Landmarking certain geographic areas as being high-risk zones allows them to configure the system for more frequent positioning in those areas," he said.
"We're looking at whether some of these applications in Brazil can play a role in the hazmat security area, which is more public safety and anti-terrorism effort. We're hopeful we can find a way to participate that would benefit the industry through reduced insurance costs. That's the model we think we've proved in Brazil."
Mapping and Routing: Steering Away From Trouble
Security begins with proper routing, according to Shel Greenberg, general manager of transportation data management for Rand McNally, another company that sees its products in a security context.
"You have to make sure the truck is routed on appropriate roads and around certain situations, obstacles or structures that create a security problem or threat," Greenberg explained.
"You must be sure to establish a route that makes sense and conforms to whatever restrictions you want to apply on a truck, for weight or hazardous materials or other such things."
Once the truck is in motion, said Greenberg, it should be monitored.
"Is it staying on that route? Is it following the proper route or for some reason is it diverted from that route? Is there a potential problem because of that?" he asked.
Answers can be provided by technologies like the geo-fencing used by Qualcomm in Brazil. Geo-fencing looks at the real-time location of trucks as reported by mobile communications systems and compares that with assigned routes. When the software discovers a deviation beyond tolerances, it generates a report and the off-route vehicle is flagged on a map screen.
Greenberg described Rand McNally products that address both routing and tracking from a security standpoint.
"Our product has a number of features to help manage the security issue, one of which is the hazmat concern, routing trucks with hazardous materials away from areas where they shouldn't be and keeping them on the roads designed to support those types of vehicles and deal with tragedies that could occur -- spills or what-have-you," he said.
"The product is designed to create a route based on 10 variations or categories of hazardous materials. You can get very specific in terms of what you're carrying and the (software) will route you on roads that allow those types of products and won't allow you to go on roads that don't allow them.''
The product called Intelliroute enables the fleet or individual trucker to define prohibited roads and areas based on their own concerns.
Intelliroute can be used in conjunction with another product called TrueTrak.
"Intelliroute with TrueTrak will allow you to track where your truck is traveling. It's based on various wireless and satellite providers such as Qualcomm. We take the latitude/longitude information from the provider and map where that truck is and where it's going. We also keep a record of where that truck has been," said Greenberg.
"We can fence around the route so in the event a truck goes off-route you'll get an alert."
The intensity of the tracking depends on the frequency with which the mobile communications or tracking system "pings" a truck, or asks it to report its position. In most geo-fencing systems, the frequency of reporting can be increased in areas considered risky.
ALK Technologies, Inc. also produces mapping tracking software. But for the company's founder and CEO, Alain I. Kornhauser, that's just a first step where security is concerned. Kornhauser also heads the Transportation Program at Princeton University.
"Great. Now you know where it (your truck) is. Whoopee. Now you need to do something about it," he said.
"You need to say go to I-70, do this or do that. Turn around. You want to redeploy it."
Kornhauser looks beyond cell phones or typical onboard computers. He sees wireless digital messages going directly to a handheld computer or PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) that runs a real-time routing navigation system for drivers.
ALK recently released a laptop-based navigation system for truckers called CoPilot Truck, which creates door-to-door routes. Attached to a small GPS (Global Positions System) device placed on the dash, the system knows your current location within yards and is able to provide turn-by-turn driving instructions using voice simulation. Of course, CoPilot Truck includes a truck-sensitive database.
"The database knows you're not allowed on certain portions of the Garden State Parkway. It knows if you're going from here (Princeton) to JFK International Airport (in Queens, N.Y.) you had better not take the Belt Parkway for many reasons. Not only are you going to get fined, but you're going to shear off the top of your truck as soon as you get off the Verazzano Narrows Bridge," he explained.
"If a trucker gets into an area where there's going to be trouble ahead, yellow and green things come across the screen to warn, Hey, you're on your own from here, but we're suggesting you don't do this."
Kornhauser sees this kind of system tied into a wireless or satellite communications so that instructions to the driver, say changes of route, are entered directly into the computer's software.
"In certain cases you want to change patterns," Kornhauser explained.
"Okay, from here to Seattle? I want you to do it via Wichita whereas the next time I want you to do it via El Paso."
Of course, the system will also work from address to address and on a regional or local scale.
According to Kornhauser, the computer recalculates the route with the new information and immediately begins providing new directions to the driver.
Kornhauser foresees truck-sensitive capabilities and more available in a small, wirelessly connected handheld computer or PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) that sits next to the driver as management's advocate in the truck cab, always keeping the driver on track and never losing patience.
"You can also encrypt the instructions," said Kornhauser. That would make instructions to the driver unintelligible to anyone who manages to intercept a message.
Trailer Tracking: Prevention And Pursuit
Like mobile communications and routing technology, trailer tracking was originally promoted for its productivity benefits. For instance, some vendors claim that always knowing where all your trailers are often means you don't need as many trailers.
Now, of course, trailer tracking is clearly seen as a cargo security enhancement. Even before September 11th, fleets were benefiting from trailer tracking investments in unexpected ways.
Earlier in 2001, for example, Terion, Inc. of Melbourne, Fla., shared with HDT a number of stories involving attempted thefts, recovered loads and abuse of equipment.
For example, two trailers just equipped with the Terion's ground-based FleetView trailer tracking system were stolen from a yard in North Carolina, quickly traced to Miami and recovered along with high-value cargo.
In another incident, trailer tracking led police to a stolen trailer-load of Gatorade and the brand new Freightliner tractor that had been stolen with it. Other FleetView customers found that trailers they thought were parked at customer locations were actually being used without authorization, sometimes by the customers and sometimes by other carriers.
In each of the Terion cases, the bad guys were unaware of the trailer tracking devices. But as trailer tracking makes its way into more and more fleets, would-be thieves or terrorists are on the lookout.
Nevertheless, some fleets want to keep their trailer tracking as much of a secret as possible while others exploit trailer tracking as a deterrent to theft. For example, truckload carrier RFK Transportation, Inc., of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, wants the world to know its trailer fleet is equipped with the satellite-based GlobalWave tracking system from Vistar Datacom. A banner announces as much on the carrier's Internet homepage (www.rfktrans.com), but that isn't all.
According to company founder and CEO Robert F. Kazimour, some GlobalWave equipped trailers also carry signs warning that trailer tracking is installed.
"At our home we have a sign that sticks in the front lawn that says, 'This house protected by ADT (the security systems company).' You see those signs all over," he said.
"It's much the same thing. If our trailer says 'this trailer is tracked by satellite' and the trailer next to it doesn't say anything, if they (the thieves) have a choice they're going to take the next trailer," Kazimour explained.
RFK runs 125 tractors and 275 trailers, mostly between the Rockies and the eastern states. So far, he said 213 are outfitted with GlobalWave's MT2000 tracking units mounted between brackets under plastic roof panels. So while the tracking units may be overt for deterrence, they remain difficult for thieves to reach and disable.
Before the installations, RFK suffered some losses.
"We had some trailer theft," said Kazimour. "We got the empty trailers back, but of course not the cargo."
Since the installation, he said, there have been no problems.
But another GlobalWave-equipped fleet takes the opposite view. This fleet is so secretive that its president, who communicated strictly by email, would not provide the name of the company and identified himself only as "Jeff."
"We have two businesses," Jeff wrote, "a warehouse and a trucking company. We handle mostly general freight, but a large percentage is a high-value product I'd rather not discuss. We operate in a large part of the Northeast with three straight trucks and six tractor trailers."
Not surprisingly, Jeff wants his trailer tracking capability to remain unknown.
"We want tracking kept secret because the type of people who would want to hit our trucks are not dumb. The less they know about tracking and other security measures the better. It's better to be able to track that asset after it's been taken than have someone disable it because they knew about it. Does a king tell his enemy he has pots of boiling water to drop on them when they breach his gate? Of course not," said Jeff.
Of all the technologies in the homeland security equation, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is the most likely to become a public policy concern. That's because both public and private RFID networks are growing rapidly with little compatibility among them.
RFID involves electronic tags that can be read by transceivers and has always been associated with security. For example, RFID tags attached to retail merchandise and read by transceivers at store exits help prevent shoplifting.
In trucking, tags can be mounted on pallets or individual pieces of freight. Transceivers might be mounted at checkpoints in a warehouse or terminal to document the movement of goods. Or they might be mounted at freight doors to track loading and unloading.
Of more immediate concern in a security context, however, is RFID used to identify trucks and trailers in broader applications. For example, RFID underlies E-Zpass and other automated toll payment technologies. RFID tags and readers enable the PrePass system to permit trucks already weighed and documented to bypass weigh stations further along a route.
But the transponders used by E-Zpass are not compatible with PrePass transponders. Incompatibilities abound among other systems.
Yet according to Randy Burgess, RFID will be increasingly in demand to verify the identities of trucks and drivers at critical points in the overall U.S. transportation system. Burgess is director global sales and marketing for Transcore's CVO (Commercial Vehicle Operations) Fleet and Intermodal Transportation unit, which provides RFID technology under the Amtech brand name.
"One area we see getting a lot of attention is on the intermodal front. We're looking at 14 million some-odd containers worldwide and 100,000 of those -- or some number close to that -- entering our country every day and countless others traveling the highways. We think there's opportunity for, let's say, problems," Burgess said.
"Transcore has deployed RFID for intermodal container tracking, chassis tracking, etc. Also for identification of the power units and even the drivers that come in to pick up loads and pass through regulatory areas.
"We've utilized RFID for border crossing. We've got a system up in the Pacific Northwest in the trade corridor that's been operating for some time. It runs from Tacoma up to the border crossing. We've also implemented other technologies such as in-cab GPS, location devices and wireless communications to track vehicles and containers," he said.
Burgess said the system that tracks equipment in and around Seattle-area port facilities and Canadian border crossings is the precursor to systems that will be encouraged if not mandated based on homeland security concerns. Burgess believes the government may act to impose standards.
"We're a commercial venture and we look out for our interests, but we also fully understand that we have to look out for the interests of the freight mobility and transportation community as a whole because we live and die together," he said.
Burgess expressed hope that authorities will carefully consider the impact of mandates on existing networks, but he also expressed confidence that wide deployment of RFID systems will offer benefits beyond security and serve both private and public interests.
"It (RFID) addresses the needs of multiple stake-holders in the freight mobility community," he said.
"By that I mean a lot of RFID installations have heretofore been put in place for the primary benefit of a relatively few stakeholders. If you look at asset management, for example, we use RFID at a truckload or LTL carrier to automate arrivals and dispatches by tagging dry vans, reefers, pups, tractors or whatever. That benefited their internal operation," said Burgess.
However if you look at weigh-station bypass and other broad-based initiatives, you'll see benefits for everyone from regulators to truckers to the general motoring public, Burgess said.
