Alternatives to deter thefts in the railways of Baixada Santista are being discussed

A scanner for all wagons that make up the railway compositions would be one of the initiatives to deter the theft of goods arriving by this mode at the Port of Santos. Earlier this month, the Baixada Santista area was cited as a critical point for lootings in wagons destined for the Santos port complex, in a public hearing on railway security held by the Transportation Committee of the Chamber of Deputies.

The Federal Government, moreover, aims to expand the definitions of railway domain boundaries. Currently, the perimeter is 15 meters on each side of the railway line, as reported by A Tribuna last Wednesday. Alan Jones Tavares, commercial manager at Mota-Engil Engenharia and railway consultant, explained that the equipment greatly facilitates the entry and movement of trains within the yards of the Port of Santos.

"It passes through a structure, a gantry that has a reader, a laser scanner or even a camera based scanner. The wagon will be 'read' with information about what it carries. Thus, you are assured that the wagon arrived with the container intact at its destination. However, it cannot tell if the wagon has been tampered with or if any part of the cargo has been removed", he explains.

The suggestion came from federal deputy Rosana Valle (PL) during a meeting held last week at the headquarters of the Santos Port Authority (APS). "With the increase in railway lines at the Port of Santos, new security measures will be necessary to ensure the integrity of the cargo and the safety of the terminals. Such measure would be pioneering in Brazil, already existing in three other countries (United States, India and Azerbaijan). The Port of Santos, due to its magnitude and importance, deserves this leadership", she states.

APS president Anderson Pomini said that the impacts of this procedure on railway operations are under study. "I have even asked our internal staff to study something similar that has already been installed in other ports around the world, as well as involving the personnel from the Internal Railway of the Port (Fips) to comment on any potential interruptions. That is: could this affect the operation and the speed of train ascents and descents? What is the overall impact for the Port? Our main premise is that it should not impact operations", he comments.

Transponder

For the effectiveness of the work, however, it would be necessary to combine it with another device, the transponder, according to Alan Jones. "It is attached to the wagon or the container that will be on a platform wagon. Then, there will be real time access to their positions. For example, if you want to know where the cargo coming from Rondonópolis to the Port of Santos is, you can check on the cell phone app and even estimate how many days or hours it will arrive in Santos. This is possible with a transponder", he explains.

Another way, the railway consultant explains, is the installation of several gantries along the railway. Each time the train passes through one of these structures, the information will be recorded and transmitted to the cargo owner.

"But it cannot tell if the cargo was tampered with or if something was taken from inside the wagon. The transponder will provide a global positioning, and depending on the information the railway can provide to this device, it can even indicate if the wagon's weight is the same, because there are railways that have several constant flow scales - that is, the train passes without even slowing down. These are dynamic scales that weigh each wagon and the train as a whole. Through this information that the company provides to the transponder on the wagon, it is possible to know, for example, if there has been any cargo removal from the wagon", he details.