摘要: |
In 1993, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) committed the United States, Canada and Mexico to facilitate movements of people and goods among the three member countries. Several projects, including the North American Trade Automation Prototype (NATAP) program, have focused on developing improved technology for sensing, inspection, and communication that could reduce delays to commercial traffic (trucks and trains) crossing the U.S.-Mexican and U.S.-Canadian borders. One of the NATAP pilot studies was conducted at the Peace Bridge, a major border crossing facility joining Buffalo, New York and Fort Erie, Ontario. The project is often referred to as the Intelligent Transportation Border Crossing System (ITBCS) project, and that nomenclature is used extensively in this report. The ITBCS technology is a transponder (tag) based system. The transponders identify load-driver-vehicle combinations moving across the bridge and are intended to help expedite both customs and immigration processing. This report present results derived from a study that focused heavily on simulation of operations at the Peace Bridge border crossing. |