Vehicle Immobilization Technologies: Best Practices for Industry and Law Enforcement

Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has been actively investigating methods to improve safety and security, as well as efficiency, in the trucking industry. To achieve these goals, FMCSA conducted various tests and evaluations of security technologies, including the 2004 Hazardous Materials Safety and Security Technology Operational Test, the Expanded Satellite Tracking, and the Untethered Trailer Tracking and Control Security projects. As a result of these studies, it was determined that additional technologies, including panic buttons, driver identification, and vehicle disabling could be deployed to obtain additional security benefits. In FY 2005, the House of Representative's Conference Report 108-792 stated that further testing of technologies, including vehicle disabling was necessary. FMCSA funded this project to support the Congressional need called out in the aforementioned report, and built it on the experience and lessons learned from previous field operational tests. The primary objective of this project was to develop Best Practices associated with the use of Vehicle Immobilization Technologies (VITs) in support of hazmat transportation, and commercial vehicle safety and security. A secondary objective was to develop a Concept of Operations for law enforcement based on project experiences.