There are between 1,583 and 2,103 ship's clerks working on a given day at west coast ports, going out into the shipyard to identify containers for transportation, said Red Smith, chief operating officer of three-year-old start-up ContainerTrac. The company has commercialised the concept developed by ship's clerk Bob Carson, who is also ContainerTrac's 'chief visionary officer'. ContainerTrac's technology could eliminate some 800 of the ship's clerks' jobs, while employing another 200 staff to operate the system.

Mr Carson's idea - to track containers by equipping the vehicles that move them, instead of equipping each container - came out of his own experience of watching many botched attempts at an automated tracking system.

The technology uses a combination of global positioning, digital mapping, motion sensor, and gyroscopic technologies to achieve almost 100 per cent accuracy. This is much more precise than using the rival radio-frequency (RF) technology, since RF signals can break down between tall stacks of containers, said Mr Smith. As port volumes grow, containers have to be stacked higher and higher, making the task of identifying individual containers increasingly time-consuming. Most attractive to the port operators is ContainerTrac's ability to shave 17 per cent off the cost of processing each container.

In addition, the technology provides a security benefit, making it easier to track the whereabouts of containers with sensitive contents.

But the union sees benefits, too. Working conditions out in the shipyards can be hazardous - already, five ship's clerks have been killed on the job this year. Taking jobs out of the yard will also limit the number of people having to breathe polluted air and be exposed to loud noise.

ContainerTrac also keeps jobs at the ports, preventing port owners from diverting jobs to out-of-state technology companies. ContainerTrac has been marketing its offerings to shipping companies on the west coast, and has received support from the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents the port operators, as its technology of choice.

The next stage is for the company to install its system in a working shipyard, and one willing potential customer has agreed to a trial. But to do this, ContainerTrac needs to raise between US$1.5 million and US$3.5 million in further funding.

So far, the going is tough, what with venture capitalists tightening their belts and leery of investing in an industry with such strong union influence.

The company is also trying to stay out of the port dispute while hoping things are resolved by the Dec 27 cooling-off period mandated by the Taft-Hartley Act, which requires ports to reopen for 80 days while negotiations continue.

Another stand-off would further slow down ContainerTrac's implementation plans, with potentially serious consequences for the company.

'It's hard for our whole team to keep working together without a sale and trying to raise funding at the same time,' Mr Smith said. While he believes that many ports around the world would be interested in the technology, it's not necessarily for all ports. 'My feeling is that some ports, such as Singapore, Rotterdam and Antwerp, are already quite efficient,' he told BT. 'But in the US, many ports are hungry for this.' If all goes well, 2003 will be the year ContainerTrac gets installed in west coast ports. 'What is exciting is if we do a really good job, our customers will bring us to their operations around the world,' said Mr Smith.