Thinking Continentally: Terrorism and Transportation

Professor Mary Brooks Authors Book on North American Transportation Post 9/11

Heightened awareness of North America’s vulnerability to terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11 has precipitated a crisis for transport suppliers and cargo owners, one that jeopardizes economic prosperity. Professor Mary Brooks examines one industry sector of the North American economic relationship–transportation services–from the perspectives of transport supplier, cargo owner and policymaker in her newly published book, Freight Transportation in North America: The Road to Security and Prosperity.

Ensuring security in international transportation without compromising operational effectiveness is a delicate balancing act. There is concern that economic benefits from NAFTA and the Canada–US Trade Agreement may have been diminished by the current security focus of American officials. Professor Brooks addresses these concerns, beginning with a history of NAFTA and subsequent continental economic integration. Succeeding chapters provide an economic and regulatory assessment of the North American transport network, and examine key issues for both cargo interests and surface transport suppliers. The issues of perimeter security and growing regionalization are also explored. Professor Brooks closes with a discussion of North America’s transportation future under the Security and Prosperity Partnership.

Professor Brooks is the William A. Black Chair of Commerce at Dalhousie University, Canada and, former, Chair of the Committee on International Trade and Transportation, Transportation Research Board in Washington, DC.  While she has published numerous academic papers on transportation issues, this is her 20th book. Writing the book took her two years and eight months but the research upon which it is based has been a decade and one-half in the making and the result of much collaboration with students and colleagues.

“It all began with the research assistance of Michael J. Siltala, MBA/LLB class of 1993 (Dalhousie University) and his work in analyzing the North American Free Trade Agreement on a line-by-line basis, which helped me to begin this 15-year journey. If it had not been for his diligence and Dean Jim McNiven’s challenge to examine the impacts of the agreement on an industry I had been researching for many years, this entire journey would never have begun. It opened my eyes to more than the narrow worlds of shipping and air cargo – to the broader fields of surface transport, and the importance of transportation to the North American economy. I had never been much of a student of Canada–US relations, but my trip to Washington and the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting to present my first efforts at looking at the impact of NAFTA on the industry was a milestone in this life-changing journey,” said Brooks.

The unique insights of North American Freight Transportation will be of interest to policymakers, those in the transport sector, as well as researchers and practitioners in political science and trade economics.

Available from Edward Elgar (www.e-elgar.com) in July 2008, 256 pp.
Hardback. ISBN: 978 1 84720 799 9