Tracking of Nuclear Shipments With Automatic Vehicle Location Systems

In January 1968 I started to work in nuclear transports. At this time, the safety precautions for nuclear shipments were only based on the use of proper containers. The IAEA regulations already existed and were applied worldwide. The word \"terrorist\", however, was completely unknown and nobody thought of a danger that sensitive material might be stolen. It was possible then to receive a licence for the transport of plutonium in the trunk of a passenger car, if it only was properly packed in a Type B container. Since then we have gone a long way. You all are aware of the precautions taken today for the shipment of sensitive material. Constant radio contact between vehicle and central base and the communication of voice and data is state of the art today. The latest development is the requirement of the authorities to constantly track and monitor the position of the transport vehicle in real time fully automatically, without any involvement of the crew of the vehicle or vehicles and without any possibility for the crew to take any influence on the transfer of the data. The accuracy requested typically is a few hundred meters.