Brownsville International Bridge Opens RFID Ready Lane

A more efficient way to cross the Gateway International Bridge was introduced Wednesday as a Ready Lane opened for passengers coming from Mexico into the U.S.

The Ready Lane uses radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology embedded in certain entry documents to speed up the process. Travelers with RFID-enabled travel documents, such as a passport card, passport, permanent resident ID, or a SENTRI card, can hold up their cards to a sensor, which will send the information to primary inspection.

If more than one person is in a vehicle, the sensor will also pick up the information from their RFID-enabled documents. Passengers simply can hold up their documents in the general direction of the sensor from their seats or the driver can present them all together.

Michael Freeman, U.S. Customs and Border Protection port director for Brownsville, said this technology speeds up the process because agents don’t have to type in names and birth dates in the Ready Lane, but instead can focus on matching faces with the documents presented.

The border patrol is expecting the new RFID lane to save up to 20 seconds per car. The border patrol is always trying to think of ways to make it easier to cross the border without curbing safety. They believe this pilot project is going to revolutionize the way border patrol is done.

The Brownsville bridge is the twelfth port of entry into the United States that has the ready Lane RFID technology.