A pilot test being conducted in the Northeast may pave the way for a national program to enhance containerized cargo security. The states of New Hampshire and Vermont, in conjunction with the private sector and federal authorities in the United States and Canada, recently launched "Operation Safe Commerce." This program uses currently available technology to enhance the security of intermodal containers that cross international borders. "The mission was to demonstrate to Washington, D.C., that we could take a simple supply chain and monitor and track a container," says Ray Gagnon, a former U.S. marshal who now serves as project director for Operation Safe Commerce.

Operation Safe Commerce grew out of a meeting between U.S. and Canadian law enforcement officials who meet regularly to discuss mutual security issues. The group heard a presentation by former U.S. Coast Guard Commander Stephen Flynn, who suggested that cargo security would be improved by incorporating safeguards at a shipping container's overseas point of origin.

The group obtained funding from the Department of Defense's Technical Support Working Group to conduct its first test. In May, Operation Safe Commerce oversaw the movement of a container of automobile tail lamps from an Osram Sylvania plant in Nove Zamky, Slovakia, to the company's plant in Hillsborough, N.H. The test involved the installation of electronic monitoring devices at five locations en route and used a global positioning system to ensure that the container followed its designated route. The container also was equipped with an intrusion-detection device to prevent tampering during the journey.

The container was shipped via truck from Nove Zamky and placed on a containership at the Port of Hamburg, Germany. The ship crossed the Atlantic and docked in Montreal, where the monitored container was transferred to a truck. The truck then crossed the Canada-U.S. border at Highgate Springs, Vt., and traveled through Vermont to its destination in New Hampshire. Forwarder BDP International of Philadelphia worked with state and local officials to manage the shipment, and the U.S. Department of Transportation's Volpe Center in Cambridge, Mass., was responsible for monitoring the tracking technology during the test.

Gagnon says that Tom Ridge's Office of Homeland Security and other federal officials have expressed interest in Operation Safe Commerce because of the high degree of cooperation it demonstrated between the private sector and a range of federal and local officials. The project hopes to receive funding to conduct additional tests involving more complex supply chains. "We have put together on a regional basis a public-private partnership that works," says Gagnon. "We have a prototype for the nation."