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Commercial Traffic Moves Quicker With New Technology
By law every truck that crosses from Mexico into the United States must go through two inspections. First, customs looks at the cargo, then the Department of Public Safety makes sure the mechanics of the truck are working properly.

Officers are looking for worn-down tires, non-working lights, or impaired drivers. They're looking for anything that might pose a danger to the drivers or others on the road.

At the Bridge of the Americas a new high-tech system is being tested. The Texas Department of Transportation is working with DPS to install a Traffic Management System.

"Ideally, it will remove the physical, human nature of the inspection. So we won't have to physically inspect every truck that comes in," said Sgt. Fred Whisenant, with DPS.

Currently, every truck inspection is entered into a database, but if the inspector were to look up every truck, Whisenant said it could take up to four minutes per truck.

Once the new system is in place, the inspector will be indoors monitoring a computer. Cameras throughout the facility and transponders issued to each truck will automatically pull up that trucks information.

"It tells us what kind of violation it has had in the past, what their out of service rate was, common violations, if drivers have been out of service, and how many inspections it's had," said Whisenant.

The screen will flash red if the truck needs to proceed to inspection. Otherwise, they'll be able to bypass the whole process.

A moving weigh-in system will also been in place. Inspectors will have a weight estimate on every truck as they head from the customs inspection site to the DPS safety checkpoint.

It's not mandatory for companies to participate in the program.

An inspection site similar to the one at the Bridge of the Americas is under construction at the Ysleta Port of Entry. Both might be fully operational by this fall.

Whisenant said even if drivers pass border inspections they're subject to being stopped elsewhere.

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