The face of Kansas City's major freeways is about to change forever. If you travel those freeways you'll need to know why, how and when.

Why: because the departments of transportation in Kansas and Missouri are taking technology to the highways to help us manage our daily drives. How: with a new traffic management system called Kansas City Scout. When: now.

You may have already heard about "smart highways." If you have, that pretty much explains Scout. The highways are "smart" because they're equipped with monitoring devices like roadway sensors and cameras that gather information about traffic conditions. When necessary, that information is used to tell drivers about what to expect.

Think about it. Smart highways foster smart drivers. If you knew ahead of time the route to your destination had a 45-minute delay, you'd probably decide to go a different way, call to say you'll be late or make other plans. What's more, if you knew in advance that there's an accident on your route, you're more likely to slow down, pay attention and avoid creating another accident.

For a free brochure about Kansas City, Scout or to talk to someone about the project, call Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) customer service at 816.622.6500

Right now, crews are placing elements of the $35 million Scout system along some of Kansas City's major highways. They've already spent a year digging trenches, laying fiber-optic cable and building a state-of-the-art operations center in Lee's Summit.

In coming months the system will blanket 75 miles of roadway in Kansas and Missouri with 75 cameras, thousands of traffic sensors and dozens of huge electronic message boards to alert drivers to traffic snarls. Before the end of next year you'll see some of Kansas City's freeways, including portions of interstates 35, 435, 70 and 670, look like you've never seen them before.

The system will use its cameras and sensors to monitor the roadways and look for trouble spots such as an accident, stalled car, dead animal or anything that would affect traffic flow. Once a problem is spotted, system operators will launch a comprehensive response. They might dispatch Missouri's Motorist Assist to help with a flat tire, verify location and incident information with local police and others so they can respond more quickly and appropriately, and use Scout's new electronic signs--which crews will begin mounting on I-435 this December--to warn you about problems ahead.

The operators also could broadcast urgent traffic information on an improved Highway Advisory Radio (station 1610 on your AM dial), send vital information to the media to broadcast, and update a Web site (www.kcscout.net). Once Scout is fully operational late next year, the site will feature urgent traffic updates and eventually allow users to check out traffic for themselves by clicking any of the system's 75 cameras monitoring the highways.

Although Scout will be new to Kansas City, systems like it have been in place for years. States such as California, Minnesota, Texas and Arizona have had great success with similar systems. They've proved to reduce rush-hour accidents as much as 27% and improve rush-hour speeds up to 35% while increasing the amount of cars on the highway by 18% to 22%. By any standard, I'd say that's pretty remarkable.

So how can we have more cars on the freeway at a faster pace and still have fewer accidents? It's all about flow. The more you can keep traffic flowing freely, the quicker traffic is able to travel, allowing the highway to accommodate more vehicles.

In a nutshell, that's what we plan to do: create a safer highway environment by improving traffic flow. Accidents will still happen, but with the new system, the duration of the incident and the number of drivers impacted will be reduced considerably.

Dianna Lopez is the Kansas City Scout communications director, and has been actively involved in the project for four years. She can be reached at 816.622.0322 or at lopezd1@mail.modot.state.mo.us.