The "green highway" not without its speed bumps, says Greaves

Patrick Burnson, Executive Editor -- Logistics Management, 10/29/2007

PHILADELPHIA—While shippers may feel a “green highway” is long overdue, analysts at last week’s Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals’ (CSCMP) Annual Conference observed that U.S. ports are still miles away from participating in such a system.

“It all has to do with the nation’s current transportation policy,” declared Joseph Greaves, director of strategy at OV and a highly-regarded expert in RFID. “Or rather, a lack thereof. And as for security…forget about it!”

Greaves made this observation at last week’s CSCMP conference session entitled “U.S. Ports Prepare for Green Lane.” While not always adhering to the stated theme of his session—he was decidedly opinionated when it came to discussing the technology standards for tracking and tracing cargo.

“What many shippers fail to understand,” he said, “is that regulation is not a burden…it’s an advantage. And it should not be resisted.”

According to Greaves, the biggest breaches to port security occur because of “0-HIO,” an acronym for “zero-human intervention operator.”

“You see,” he explained, “we humans are a very messy problem. The more of them we have handling cargo, the more problems you have with its secure movement.”

Greaves is the founding chairman of USA RFID standards, and served as director-general of the European UHF RFID Spectrum Allocation Initiative. 

“Here in the States,” he said, “we have a regulatory patchwork, rather than a framework. Your elected officials care about one thing and one thing only: getting re-elected.”

As a consequence, he said, ports are not on the same page when it comes to implementing security standards.

“And furthermore,” he said, “there’s too many ports.”

His solution: build two North American ocean gateways—one in Halifax, Canada, the other in Quetzal, Mexico. A modern continental rail network, funded by private-sector investors would also be part of the equation.

“I’m not being entirely facetious,” he said. “This would be a huge undertaking requiring the cooperation of several sovereign nations, but it could be done.”