Rod Diridon, Executive Director, Mineta Transportation Institute, noted that last fall in Oakland, California when a petroleum tanker crashed and exploded on a freeway interchange known locally as “The MacArthur Maze,” the intense heat affected the supporting steel’s temper, the structure literally melted, closing a major access to the San Francisco Bay Bridge and partially isolating the city.

The next day, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) asked the Mineta Transportation Institute’s National Transportation Security Center (MTI NTSC) to quickly examine the possibility that terrorists could use similar methods to cripple the state’s transportation infrastructure.

Following Caltrans request, MTI’s security team immediately mobilized the Motor Carrier Tracking and Interdiction Study. With MTI already under a master contract with Caltrans through the national UTC program, Director Jenkins and his experienced team immediately initiated an urgent, preliminary definition of the threat and potential remedial actions. Those were quickly shared in a sequence of intense briefings with California’s state security leaders. MTI’s first detailed preliminary report on longer-term security options was delivered to the Caltrans and California Office of Emergency Services (OES) liaisons within 30 days of the project assignment.

As a result, Caltrans and OES security leaders had reliable information to immediately and pragmatically act to protect California’s people and infrastructure. The MTI NTSC Motor Carrier Tracking and Interdiction Study continues into a second phase, now examining the transport not only of combustibles, but also of toxics. That report is due this summer.

Consequently, Caltrans and AASHTO have asked MTI to present a Mineta National Policy Summit covering this topic at a national AASHTO meeting later in the year. For more information, contact MTI at 408-924-7560 or email Communications Director Donna Maurillo at maurillo@mti.sjsu.edu.