Sep 15, 2004 10:53 AM, from staff and wire reports

The United States Department of Homeland Security has announced an additional $21 million grant, available for use beginning March 2005, for the American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) Highway Watch program.

This cooperative agreement with the ATA will help to expand the Highway Watch program, which trains highway professionals to identify and report safety and security concerns on US roads. The program will provide training and communications infrastructure to prepare hundreds of thousands of transportation professionals to respond in case they or their cargo are the target of a terrorist attack and to share intelligence with Homeland Security if they see potential threats.

Commercial truck and bus drivers, school bus drivers, highway maintenance crews, bridge and tunnel toll collectors, and others will receive instruction under the Highway Watch grant. The program’s main goal is to prevent attacks by teaching highway professionals to avoid becoming a target for terrorists who would use large vehicles or hazardous cargoes as a weapon. A secondary goal is to train highway professionals to recognize and report suspicious activity.

The Highway Watch program will link these trained transportation professionals with first responders, law enforcement, and the intelligence community via the Transportation Security Administration’s Transportation Security Operations Center (TSOC) in Herndon VA.