KC Scout Shout!

  This past month, KC Scout Incident Management Coordinator, Marcus Slaughter and the  KC’26 Transportation Director, Jason Sims attended the National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE) event in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss and collaborate with other transportation employees about the upcoming FIFA World Cup. This 2-day event hosted around 20+ transportation representatives from many major cities/states all over the country, including, Miami, Seattle, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Texas, Missouri, and Georgia. This past summer, prior to the event, Atlanta hosted six matches, serving as a precursor to the larger 2026 FIFA World Cup. “Although I didn’t attend any of those matches, there was still a wealth of information shared on what to potentially expect when Kansas City hosts their matches next year, both good and bad,” Slaughter said. During their time in Atlanta, not only did they learn lots of valuable information in regards to the upcoming FIFA World Cup, bu...

  They say everything’s bigger in Texas, and the 2025 TMC Pooled Fund Study (PFS) was no different. While this event is typically held in the spring, this year it was moved to the fall, providing the opportunity to pair the study with Texas DOT’s Transportation Systems Management & Operations (TMSO) Summit, making the event bigger and better. Traffic Systems Supervisor, Kelly Alvarez attended this year’s event in Austin, Texas. “ The range of topics for the TSMO Summit and the TMC PFS are so vast,” says Alvarez. “Everything from cyber security, to V2X (short for Vehicle-to-Everything referring to technology that allows vehicles to communicate with other vehicles, pedestrians, infrastructure, and networks), to TMC best practices, roadway and incident detection systems, World Cup, Dynamic Message Sign policy, Motorist Assist programs, Drones, etc. were discussed.”   Having an event such as this one, where individuals from various state DOTs and Federal Highway Association...

  With the 2026 FIFA World Cup approaching, KC Scout is brainstorming all the ways that we can make this worldwide event run as seamless as possible. One of those ways is by simplifying travel time messages on our roadside message boards. With visitors traveling to Missouri from all over the world, KC Scout thought of a way that we could make Scouts message boards easy to read and understand for everyone. With a single point target. For many years, Scouts message boards have listed several locations with the current time it takes to travel to that location. In the past, drivers have reported that these boards are difficult to analyze and understand when they are not familiar with the location. Adding additional information, such as distance, will help travelers be prepared for what to expect.  According to the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), “Travel time should be tied to the distance to a particular destination or junction so that road users can esti...

Preparing your city for an event that is viewed all around the globe is no easy feat, but KC Scout handles the pressure with ease. With the FIFA World Cup fast approaching Kansas City, our top priorities remain clear: keeping travelers safe and traffic flowing smoothly across the KC Metro. With hundreds of thousands of tourists flooding into our city traffic snarls are inevitable, but it is our job to minimize the damage as much as possible. With that goal in mind, Scout is creating Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs) for its four major functional areas to anticipate and respond to a range of situations that could likely occur to disrupt the tight schedules of getting teams, coaches and fans to the Stadium for their scheduled matches. There was no stone left unturned when coming up with these EOPs. With our teams’ years of experience and extensive knowledge of Missouri’s roadways, we collaborated to create plans covering everything from staffing needs to the most efficient way to rep...