Port groups to broaden security initiative

Port groups to broaden security initiative    Major port groups Hutchison Port Holdings, P&O Ports, PSA Corp., Stevedoring Services of America and other companies aim to broaden their “smart and secure tradelanes” security initiative and move to a second phase of the program.
   So far the port operators, shippers and other backers of the joint program have tracked about 1,000 containers from Asia and Europe to the United States. They have placed electronic seals on containers to track them and to detect anyone tampering with them.
   A spokesman for the program said the first phase of the program has now been completed.
   In the second phase, 20 tradelanes will be added. Sensor-equipped “smart containers” will be used and the volume of containers moving under the “smart and secure tradelanes” will increase to more than 5,000, the spokesman said. The containers will be either existing containers into which intrusion-detection systems have been placed, or containers where sensors will be embedded into them at the time they are manufactured.
   The security initiative will also feature sensor technologies for detecting environmental changes inside containers, automated surveillance cameras, biometric identification, and satellite tracking for in-transit visibility.
   Fifteen ports now participate in the security program, which was launched last year.
   Jan Gelderland, managing director of the Hutchison-controlled ECT terminal at the port of Rotterdam, said an increasing number of shippers are participating by having their products placed in containers at their manufacturing plants and tracked in real-time through ECT to ports on the U.S. East Coast.