Delta Express joins TSX in opening new secure parking facility in West Memphis, Ark.
In addition to onsite security, all of TXS facilities offer a varying degree of on-site services.
The Trucker News Services
5/11/2009
WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — Delta Express Inc., a intermodal drayage company, has announced the opening of the first of three new full-service secure trailer parking facilities here.
The “drop-yard” facility offers 41 acres of secure, 24/7 trailer parking.
Joining with Delta Express is Terminal Exchange Services (TXS), a consulting and marketing firm specializing in providing trucking companies with reliable, professionally managed, state-of-the-art, secure parking facilities in an expanding, nationwide network.
TXS operates the “Secure Trailer Parking Network.”
“This is a perfect fit for us,” Mike Pilgreen, terminal manager for Delta Express, said. “We already provided 24/7 custom bonded storage at all of our facilities. Our facility’s infrastructure is already designed, managed and operated for the protection of our client’s equipment and cargo. By joining the TXS network, we will be expanding our strict security criteria, policies and procedures to a broader and higher level to include our fleet clients as well. It just takes one stolen trailer with a million dollar cargo to ruin a trucking company’s year. ‘That will never happen here.”
“Cargo theft was one of the fastest growing crimes in the country, even before the recent downturn in our economy,” Jon Paul Harwood, president of TXS, said. “When you add to the mix tens of thousands of recently unemployed transportation industry workers, and the relative ease of stealing unsecured loaded trailers, you have the makings of a serious risk to trucking companies without secured parking.”
In addition to onsite security, all of TXS facilities offer a varying degree of on-site services, including video surveillance, 24/7 access, log-in/log-out gate records, inventory control, dispatch-to-drivers controlled releases, document handling, trailer and tractor maintenance, hostler assisted staging and driver amenities.
“This isn’t just another drop yard,” Harwood said. “We make every effort to work hand and hand with our fleet accounts dispatch & operations staffs as extensions of their own efforts to do their jobs efficiently, safely and profitably. By utilizing the secure facilities of the TXS Secure Trailer Parking Network, trucking companies will see their insurance premiums go down. In addition, they will experience zero losses from theft and better public relations. These improvements can’t help but insure a rapid growth in this industry.”
Harwood said that “Homeland Security is coming to town as well.
“On 9/11, it became quite apparent that our nation’s security as a whole was in dire need of an over-haul. This reality was never more obvious then in our nation’s ports and harbor terminals. To provide the highest level of security that we can in the global supply chain from its origin to its final destination will require the cooperative effort of Homeland Security and the private transportation sector,” he said.
Delta Express, with locations at West Memphis, Ark., Nashville, Tenn., and Atlanta, was one of the first transportation companies in the South to voluntarily adapt to the security outlines established by the Department of Homeland Security.
Lou Hazel, CEO of Delta Express, said the company believed very strongly in helping anyway it could to help protect U.S. boarders and the country from terrorism.
“Secure trailer parking facilities help protect the integrity of the freight being transported from our Ports of Entry, to the ultimate consumer,” Hazel said. “Eventually, it will become mandatory that all trailer parking depots involved in all stages of international trade will have to meet the criteria and guidelines established by Homeland Security.”.
“The mission behind TXS and its “Secure Trailer Parking Network” is to be able to provide the highest level of security possible for our nation’s transporters while on the road,” Harwood said. “It is security that goes beyond the Ports of Entry and is available at multiple locations along all the major transportation corridors in this country. All of these locations will have to provide the same services and follow the same guidelines and criteria required by TXS to qualify as one of its members.”
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