The US Customs and Border Protection site has announced the “First Electronic Truck Manifest Filed on Southern Border”. I guess to be accurate they should clarify that the manifest is electric, not the truck.

Anyway, I haven’t seen this picked up in any news (perhaps since it has been working for some time on the northern border of the US and isn’t newsworthy) but I figured the announcement must be meaningful to those who monitor the progress of tracking systems, plus it had some interesting language:

The automated manifest provides CBP officers with cargo information prior to a shipment arriving at the gate. Comprehensive data such as information on the driver and passengers; a description of the conveyance and any applicable equipment like a trailer; and details regarding the shipment are included.

[…]

There are currently 31 ACE ports in the states of Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota and Washington. The schedule for deployments of ACE to additional ports continues in January, beginning with selected ports in Texas in early 2006.

That is many more than I had been aware of and so I am curious when intra-state borders or even road-side checkpoints will have ACE setup.