Verifying Drivers

Jun 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By James Shondel

Since 9/11, the threat of terrorist activities has made ports and transportation hubs top priorities for every type of security countermeasure. The need for security has complicated the process of getting intermodal containers from a seaport to a railroad hub or other transportation hub and back. Today, before a container enters a hub or port, it must be verified that the specific container belongs with that specific vehicle and that the specific vehicle is driven by a specific driver.

However, transportation hub operations are not environments conducive to such massive security screening. Hubs are typically measured in acres; they are outdoors and, first and foremost, they are high-volume businesses where time is money. Human error is to be expected. Nonetheless, the federal government, through the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), accepts no excuses for slipshod security, as the impending TWIC (Transportation Workers Identification Credential) program attests.

Seeing how such a program operates should be helpful to other transportation intermodal operators, pending TWIC users as well as any organization that ships and delivers materials.

The intermodal industry at work

When containers come off ships at the Chicago port to be taken to railroad hubs, such as Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway's (BNSF) two facilities in the Chicago area, they are put onto semi-trailers driven by short-haul drivers who are paid per trip.

One of the hubs is the Corwith Intermodal Facility, located in southwest Chicago on nearly a square mile of land, which has been a landmark in railroad freight transport history since it was built in 1887. Corwith's straddle cranes load approximately 1,900 containers per day. Trucks enter and leave the facility via 20 lanes.

Southwest of Chicago is the Elwood hub, which has 33 lanes for trucks, features 4,013 wheeled parking spots and more than 1.1 million lifts annually on a 429-acre lot. Both hubs run 24 hours a day. There are approximately 10,000 drivers in the two hub databases. Between the two hubs, there are more than 4,000 deliveries a day.

As each truck enters a hub lane, it is stopped by a gate arm at the end of a portal where high-resolution photographs are taken of the container and recorded to ensure that it has suffered no damage as well as to record its identification number. This process verifies that a specific container is expected and that it has not been tampered with or breached.

The vehicle's license plate is also captured and recorded to verify that it is the specific truck that should carry a specific container. The driver is then photographed, and a scan of his or her driver's license is taken. The newest addition to the verification process includes the use of a fingerprint sensor. The driver places his or her finger onto the sensor where the unique aspects of the fingerprint are captured and transformed into a mathematical representation called a template.

The photograph of the driver is matched to the photo on the driver's license. Entering a driver's license number pulls up the stored template for the driver's fingerprint and compares it to the live information just captured. With these multiple inputs, the driver can be verified as being who he or she says they are and that he or she is indeed the specific driver that should be driving this truck with this container.

Once the container, vehicle and driver are all verified, the truck and its cargo move on to the lifts. The process is repeated on the way out with trucks carrying containers that have come off the train and are on their way back to the Chicago port.

When the verification process was handled by people, it took about five minutes per truck on average. Drivers had to sit and wait to be verified themselves and often waited in long lines for those ahead of them to be verified. The process was often riddled with human errors. Today, with Charlotte, N.C.-based NASCENT Technology's SYNAPSE Automated Gate System, the process averages just 90 seconds with no human errors.

Since the TWIC rollout will include fingerprint biometrics as part of the verification process, it was important to get this critical technology component added to the driver's license verification process. As the transportation industry moves toward the TWIC solution, the Homeland Security Department (DHS) favors a dual authentication process that includes fingerprint biometrics over simply verifying the card via photo image.

Biometrics, however, present a challenge in a Chicago railroad yard. Inclement weather can take a toll on biometric installations. Depending on the technology, fingerprint readers can be susceptible to dirt, grime, sunlight, chafed fingers and the other environmental realities of a railroad hub.

Cold, dry conditions as well as dirt and water render both conventional optical and silicon fingerprint sensors temporarily useless. Further, silicon sensors are too fragile. Optical readers have problems with light, and the BNSF rail hubs work 24 hours a day in all types of sunlight situations. Truck drivers' hands cannot be kept clean because of the nature of their work, while rain and snow are a reality in the Midwest. Lastly, ultrasonic-based readers had too many mechanical parts to be used in high-throughput hub applications.

Also complicating the situation: Many of the users do not read or speak English so the solution had to be very intuitive. The application required that the driver enter his or her driver's license number, and then put a dirty finger onto the unit without worrying about how it was positioned on the platen or with how much pressure. With 8,000 readings per day, the application also needed high throughput and low false rejects. A different type of fingerprint technology is a multispectral approach, that uses multiple wavelengths of light to read both the external and “internal” fingerprints of a person. Unknown to most people, approximately 2 mm below the skin, there is a set of capillaries that are in a pattern that is identical to one's external fingerprints. With the multispectural fingerprint readers from Lumidigm, Albuquerque, N.M., if the external fingerprint is obscured by water, dirt or chafing, the fingerprint sensor uses the information from the internal fingerprint. Thus, the problem with dirty fingers and maintaining performance in all weather conditions is solved.

The technology also helped in a second way. Typically, biometrics require some type of training for the user, which increases the cost of the enrollment process. However, since these readers required no special positioning or pressure, drivers could be enrolled quickly and the system generated exceptionally good enrollment information.

Networking helps with overflow

The biometric fingerprint reader, along with the rest of the automated gate system, is connected to the hub's Ethernet LAN and goes to the NASCENT server via fiber optic cable. Most verification is done onsite. However, during peak busy times, verification input can also be sent to a third party, Remprex is a company established to service the AGS system for additional help during these periods, thus further saving BNSF Railway additional personnel expense. During peak times, approximately 60 percent of the verification process is completed at the local hubs, and 40 percent is being handled by Remprex.

At first, some of the drivers missed the interaction with those they had come to know over the years who checked them in. However, once they realized that they were getting in and out of the hubs faster, they embraced the system. To these drivers, extra time means additional hauls per day and more money. Plus, they were reducing their fuel costs by no longer standing in line.

Meanwhile, verification of the containers, trucks and drivers is more secure than ever. There is no chance for human error, which the DHS appreciates.

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James Shondel is chairman of the Security Task Force TWIC Group Subcommittee for the Intermodal Association of North America, vice president of NASCENT Technology and president of Remprex.

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