Oak Ridge Lab Develops Web 2.0 System for HazMat Tracking

(CitizenCorps.gov)

Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee is developing a system for tracking hazardous materials that lets stakeholders use their own technology and protocols for keeping track of these shipments. The Tracking 2.0 system, that employs a Web-based social media approach to HazMat tracking, was funded by the Office of Science in the Department of Energy — Oak Ridge Lab’s parent organization — and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The lab’s interest in HazMat tracking is based on its need to keep close watch on radioactive isotopes sent to and from Oak Ridge for industry, medicine, and research. While most commercial shipping and logistic companies have sophisticated systems for tracking shipments, even those involving hazardous materials, Oak Ridge often has to use multiple companies for its shipments, which means dealing with incompatible systems from end to end.

The Tracking 2.0 system uses the Internet’s familiar Uniform Resource Locator (URL), by definition a unique string of characters, as the shipment’s unique identifier. This URL then points to a site with the tracking information for that shipment.

The Web 2.0 features come in as the shipment’s supply-chain partners form a type of community to track the shipment. Those stakeholders — shipper, recipient, transportation companies, warehouses, and local emergency management staff — can assign tags to the shipment’s identifier. User-defined tags are a common attribute of social media.

The supply-chain partners add these tags incrementally in the progress of the shipment, but they do not interfere with the operation of the whole system. The partners can then search the tags, or connect their own management systems with the URL/shipment identifier based on those tags.

The Tracking 2.0 system has been in development for eight years, and has passed several tests. The next step, according to Oak Ridge, is a demonstration with a commercial isotope supply chain and new types of sensor technologies.

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