These Tips Can Fight The Growing Threat Of Theft
2020 was not a good year for cargo security.
With the pandemic making every vaccine, food, and essential equipment shipment even more precious, theft affected more than just the bottom line; lives were at stake within any given freight!
According to CargoNet, 2020 was the year of: a 16% increase in supply chain risk events in 2020, a 19% increase in average theft value ($166,334), a 91.43% year-over-year increase of reported theft in Q2, and a 26.92% year-over-year increase in reported theft in Q3. Trailer theft and tractor theft rose 49% and 18%, respectively.
Thieves utilized everything from cyber attacks, to email phishing, to fictitious pickups, to identity theft, to outright truck-jacking in order to steal freight. In addition, the lack of job hours and opportunities in the pandemic-stricken labor market gave rise to more internal theft by employees.
Though theft prevention on a large scale seems daunting, there are a number of initiatives fleet owners and operators can institute in order to curb the problem:
- Training drivers to be more cautious when it comes to leaving loads unattended and locking their doors
- Instituting enterprise-level cybersecurity
- Beefing up physical security locks on freight
- Using asset-backed tracking tools that use GPS surveillance to assist in recovery of stolen goods
- Enabling GPS tracking of all trucks
- Using security cameras on trucks
- Enabling footage recording and live viewing within and outside of vehicles
- Enabling security cameras in freight yards
- Geofencing to track when drivers stray from their routes
- Breadcrumb tracking to view vital information from any second of an entire route
Don’t get lulled into a false sense of security, it’s a costly mistake!
