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The Customs Service put its import-export automation eggs in a new basket called the Automated Commercial Environment. But funding and operational issues have delayed the delivery of ACE, and everyone involved in cross-border trade, including trucking, continues lurching along with the old system, hoping it won’t crash utterly and throw the customs-clearance process back into the Dark Ages of massive paper-filing.

ACE is designed to replace the aging Automated Commercial System. ACS suffers almost regular “brownouts,” or slowdowns, because it is 17 years old and is operating at 92% of its capacity. From January to June 1999, the system suffered as many as 100 outages a month, some of which were at least 24 hours long, according to customs officials. Were it to crash completely, they said, importers would have to file their entries the old-fashioned way, on paper. That could be a disaster for many businesses relying on just-in-time deliveries.

Because nearly 80% of the U.S. trade exchange with Canada and Mexico moves by truck, companies hauling international cargo have a stake in funding for the new system.

“Automation is part of the overall efficiency with border trade — 98% of imports are cleared through ACS,” said Martin Rojas, director of customs, immigration and cross-border operations for American Trucking Associations. But the brownouts and crashes leave trucks “stuck at the border.”

For the full story, see the Apr. 10 print edition of Transport Topics. .