CBP roll out of truck manifest nears completion
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is scheduled to complete implementing its electronic truck manifest system at all Southwest border sites by the end of May, according to the official in charge of the project.
With the automated manifest filing system for trucks in place on the Canadian and Mexican borders the agency will move forward with plans later this year on a proposal to mandate the use of the electronic system, said Lou Samenfink, executive director of cargo systems programs, at a Commercial Operations Advisory Committee meeting earlier this month.
The e-truck manifest, being developed as part of the ACE computer modernization program, is used by cross-border truckers on a voluntary basis.
Under current security rules, most truckers must fax their manifests on their own, or through customs brokers, to CBP at least two hours prior to arrival at the border. CBP wants to automate the manifest system to improve security and speed up cargo release by pre-checking shipping information, rather than having officers manually check papers when the driver pulls up at the booth.
CBP began deploying the e-truck manifest system on the southern border last December. During 2005 it rolled out the advance filing capability to ports on the northern border.
Samenfink said CBP processed 920 e-manifests in April via its truck manifest Web portal or through electronic data interchange transmissions. The number is a fraction of the 214,000 truck shipments that crossed the border during the month, but is almost equal to the number of transactions for the entire nine months the program was running in 2005.
There are 222 companies that have signed up and are certified to send manifest messaged via EDI, Samenfink told COAC.
Samenfink said the agency has fixed problems with the system to allow carriers to avoid having to re-key redundant information for regular shippers and receivers and enter the FAST driver identification number. There is also an expanded support desk to help truckers who are trying to use the Web-based portal for filing manifests. Samenfink said that the agency is also hiring Spanish speakers to man the help desk.