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Editorial Features | News / Analysis

TSA plans pilot program to evaluate cargo screening technologies

By Jacob Goodwin, Editor-in-Chief

Published January 28th, 2008

Cargo-Web

The Transportation Security Administration plans to launch a pilot program at 18 major U.S. airports and nearby cargo consolidation facilities to evaluate different procedures for screening cargo with X-ray and explosive detection equipment before that cargo is put on pallets and loaded onto passenger aircraft.

A variety of air carriers and cargo consolidators, known as "Indirect Air Carriers" (IACs), will be eligible to compete for one or more funded contracts as part of this pilot program.

The program is intended to increase overall screening capacity by focusing on screening sites other than an air carrier’s facilities located directly at an airport. "TSA intends to focus on the IAC’s point in the supply chain where cargo can be screened before it is configured in bulk," said a board agency announcement released by TSA on January 25.

In fact, only cargo facilities that consolidate at least 200 loads per year for shipment on passenger wide body aircraft are eligible to apply for participation in the pilot program.

Each location will be required to procure and utilize at least one X-ray device and one explosive detection device. The broad agency announcements cited the following manufacturers and models as technologies that possibly could be evaluated:

• Rapiscan’s 620 DV advanced technology X-ray
• Smiths Detection’s HiScan 6040a TiX
• GE’s Itemiser 2
• Smiths Detection’s Ionscan 400B

TSA plans to analyze various security practices used at the different facilities to identify those practices that work best. It is considering "tamper evident technologies," such as tape seals and secure wrapping, and "process security" programs, such as secure facilities and locked-and-monitored vehicles.

Participants in the pilot will be asked to submit bi-weekly reports with screening data such as total cargo volumes, percent screened, false alarm rates, down time and effectiveness by commodity types. The TSA eventually wants to determine how much of a particular type of screening equipment it would need to screen 100 percent of its current cargo volume.

The pilot program is being established in accordance with the Implementing the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, which requires that 50 percent of all cargo on passenger aircraft be screened by February 2009 and 100 percent be screened by August 2010.

Initial applications for the pilot program must be submitted to TSA to e-mail address by February 8. Questions can be submitted to Guy Galloway at by February 4.


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