Port of N.Y.-N.J. TWIC program goes smoothly

Port of N.Y.-N.J. TWIC program goes smoothly    The Port of New York and New Jersey said this week’s implementation of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or TWIC card, program has gone smoothly.
   “A little over a week ago we were quite concerned about how the compliance was going to go, especially because we had made a decision to link each driver’s TWIC card with our SeaLink card so that we could use one card to facilitate both the security and commercial transaction,” said Bethann Rooney, manager of port security for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
   The SeaLink card is the port authority’s own identification card that is used at the port's marine terminals. The port has issued 35,000 of those SeaLink cards for drivers from all around the country, and only a small fraction of those drivers had linked the two cards.
   The port authority investigated further and found that a core cadre of about 8,000 drivers do regular drayage at the port's major marine terminals.
   By last Monday, only 42 percent of those 8,000 regular drivers had linked their two cards, but by last Friday, that share had soared to 73 percent. On Monday the Coast Guard began requiring truckers, longshoremen and other port workers to have TWIC cards to enter marine facilities. By the end of Monday, 82 percent of regular truckers had linked the cards and by Tuesday it was 89 percent.
   As a result, Rooney said on Monday only 64 trucks and 27 or 28 longshoremen were turned away from the terminals because they did not have their proper identification.
   “All in all there was little disruption in our ability to move the commerce within the port,” she said.