Every night before Ted Bushelman gets in the car to head home to Florence, he makes sure to dial his “favorite little number”: 511, the traveler information hot line.

        “My time is very valuable, as is everyone else's in the world, and I'm not going to waste it sitting in traffic,” said the communications director of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

        The hot line, which is operated by the Advanced Regional Traffic Interactive Management and Information System (ARTIMIS), is celebrating its first birthday this month.

        Cincinnati was the first city to implement the phone number after the Federal Communications Commission assigned it as the national number for traveler information in 2000.

        Since June 2001, more than 878,000 callers — or 73,000 a month — have received the road-specific traffic information. The 24-hour hot line, updated more than 700 times a day, is a free call from any wired or cellular phone.

        “It's a system that provides lots of methods to save time,” said Tim Schoch, ARTIMIS deputy program manager. “We're providing real-time, route-specific information for the region's interstates. We want folks to know before they go.”

        Data is gathered through more than 85 cameras, electronic detectors under pavement, mobile probes and other traffic sources.

        It takes four to six people to run the system's 96 dedicated lines during peak traffic hours. The system is transitioning from live voice to a recorded automated voice.

        Travelers also can get the same information online, at www .artimis.org. The site, which includes video images, is updated when the hot line is and gets about 1 million page views a month.

        “Clearly, anytime you can divert someone from the congestion, that person is going to benefit, and obviously, there is a significant demand for that type of information,” Mr. Schoch said.

        Traffic information used to be accessed by dialing 211, and some cellular services still recognize only that number, Mr. Schoch said. This region is one of a handful of areas that use 511, but 16 more locations, including the rest of Kentucky, hope to have the system running by the end of the year.

        The Departments of Transportation in Kentucky and Ohio own ARTIMIS. The 511 operation's phone lines and support systems cost about $7,000 a month, Mr. Schoch said.

        “It's one of those things that you start out using once in a while, and all of a sudden it becomes a necessity rather than a luxury,” Mr. Bushelman said.

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