Strategies against insecurity in freight transport in Mexico
For the National Chamber of Autotransport of Cargo of Mexico (CANACAR), insecurity is the biggest challenge facing the Autotransport sector in Mexico. An example of this is the case of heavy transport (tractors and trailers), where the crime of theft grew 224% so far in the six-year period of President Enrique Peña Nieto, according to information from Proceso.
The states with the highest incidence of theft are Mexico, Michoacán, Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Veracruz. “The robberies in the highway easily are of 50 units daily, as much inside the city as in the road routes. One of the most dangerous points for truck drivers and companies is the triangle formed by Tlaxcala, Veracruz and Puebla, the Mexico-Veracruz and Mexico-Tlaxcala routes,” said Elías Dip Ramé, president of the National Confederation of Mexican Transport Companies (Conatram), in an interview for Proceso.
According to a study presented by the President of the Commission for Security and Crime Prevention (Concamin), José Refugio Muñoz, in 2017 the cost of insecurity to motor transport on roads was more than 92,000 million pesos, equivalent to 0.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of Mexico.
In this context, CANACAR presented the “Strategic Agenda against insecurity in the cargo motor transport sector“, which sets out the priority actions that should be carried out in terms of prevention, preventive policy and procurement and delivery of justice, and that we expose next:
Preventive
- Establish hours of circulation in the areas with the greatest danger, when the federal police have security.
- Build guardhouses/modules at the entrance and exit of the kilometers most affected by crime (Puebla-Tlaxcala-Veracruz).
- To promote and train for the use of databases from the government, with the aim of generating algorithms that predict probabilities and elements in common in crimes (Big Data).
Reactive policy
- Elaborate a manual of procedures that establishes how the police have to act against the crimes to the motor transport sector.
- Train and carry out simulations by the police force, to have the best strategy and act before a crime.
- Include and promote the use of technology to prosecute crime in real time through communication with insurers and carriers.
- Encourage the reporting of crimes, through concrete actions. Specifically, generate the image of a solid state of law through the capture of offenders and exemplary sanctions that discourage committing the crime.
Law enforcement and justice
- Simplify complaint processes, especially the approved police report, to generate an expedited process.
- Propose other means to carry out the complaint. The electronic media and the telephone have given positive results in other countries.
- Promote a simplified and expeditious process to free the units that are subject to investigation, eliminating bureaucratic obstacles or unnecessary processes.
- Define and establish a coordination strategy between the different levels of government, both vertically and horizontally, where communication is effective and streamlines processes.
- Encourage existing proposals on the professionalization of public ministries.
- Promote the centralization of police training, through a National Academy of Police.
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