RFID For Truck Tracking?

      A Georgia Southern University professor has an idea to use radio frequency identification (RFID) devices to create a nationwide truck-tracking system.
      Professor Bob Cook envisions attaching a small RFID unit with its own identification code to each truck and container. Every time a truck passes through a weigh station, an electronic reader would sense the RFID devices and feed the truck and container’s location into a national truck tracking computer system. Cook also proposes to equip law enforcement vehicles with RFID sensors. The sensors would then collect truck-tracking information in the normal course of their patrols and transmit it back to a computer system.
      "RFID is catching fire in the transportation industry,” said Tom Armstrong, director of strategic development and information technology for the Georgia Ports Authority, which is working with Cook on the project. “We at the Georgia Ports Authority are looking to the day when there is a national infrastructure in place, and even further down the road, an international infrastructure that can capitalize on RFID possibilities.”
      RFID is not new technology. RFID “tags,” as they are known, are being used in transportation to track pallets, in high-tech cargo seals, to gather information on tires, in automatic toll transponders, and may someday replace bar codes in many applications.
      Cook assembled a prototype system and successfully tested it at a weigh station on Interstate 16 near Savannah, Ga. He worked with the Georgia Ports Authority, a trucking company and a major retail distributor.
      ATA spokesman Mike Russell expressed skepticism, noting that there seems to be “a never-ending series of security products the ‘trucking industry must have.’ ”
      Also, he says, this is “allegedly for only security-related tracking today, but what about potential Big Brother-style abuses tomorrow?”