Welcome to the BIFA Web Site

The Federal Highway Administration (Office of Freight Management and Operations) and Transport Canada (ITS Office) are spearheading an effort in partnership with state and provincial DOTs and regional planning organizations to develop a Border Information Flow Architecture (BIFA). The initiative involves numerous stakeholders and is intended to be a framework that depicts the flow of information between government (federal, state and local) agencies and components of the transportation system, as they relate to border processes (e.g., the flow of advanced traveler information from inspection and enforcement agencies to transportation organizations).  The objective is to develop an architecture to promote information sharing and coordination among agencies and stakeholders and increase interoperability of technologies used to support their operations.

There are a multitude of agencies from numerous jurisdictions (federal, state, provincial) that operate at or on the approach to Canada-U.S. border crossings. The BIFA is intended to aid agencies in planning and implementing interoperable technologies at or on the approach to Canada-U.S. land border crossings. 

About this Web Site

The purpose of this web site is to encourage use of the BIFA and gather feedback so that the architecture is used and continues to reflect the intelligent transportation system vision for the international border region.  The menu bar at left provides access to the stakeholders, the transportation systems in the Region (the "Inventory"), the transportation services that will be provided, transportation-related functions that are envisioned, existing and planned interfaces, and other architecture components that apply at or near the border.

Other Sources of Information

The majority of this web site was generated directly from a Turbo Architecture database.  Two versions of the Turbo File are provided to support different ways that BIFA might be used: TurboBIFA includes BIFA as a regional ITS architecture. Use this source file if you would like to create projects based on BIFA or use BIFA as the starting point for a regional ITS architecture. TurboBIFAProject includes BIFA as a project ITS architecture. Use this file if you would like to import BIFA into another Turbo file. For example, this is the file to use if you would like to import BIFA into an existing regional ITS architecture.

This web site is also supplemented by a document in PDF format that includes much of the same architecture content that is presented here (approx. 2 Mb).

Contact Us

For more information about the BIFA program, please contact: