A new cargo tracking system now being used at major world seaports and military bases could one day be extended into the nation’s interior, including Kansas.

“Kansas is a key transportation route, and I would think it will be used there,” said Mark Nelson, spokesman for Savi Technology, Sunnyvale, Calif. “It’s not in the near future. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

The U.S. Departments of defense and transportation are using the technology to track cargo containers transported between the United States and some foreign countries.

The containers have been fixed with electronic bolt seals. The seals can be tracked by a computer software system. The seals hold a considerable amount of information about the cargo and can tell those monitoring it when it is opened, locations it has left and locations where it has arrived.

“We can follow it from point of origin to final destination,” Nelson said.

Savi Technology developed the electronic bolt seals and PAR Technology, headquartered in New Hartford, N.Y., developed the wireless tracking system.

The systems, dubbed Smart and Secure Tradelanes, was developed in the 1990s and has received additional interest by private enterprise since the 9-11 terrorist attacks, Nelson said.

That tracking technology, however, is similar to two electronic tracking systems already in use along Kansas highways, state officials said.

One of them is the PrePass system, installed at the port of entry to the Kansas Turnpike south of Wichita. The other is the K-TAG system on the turnpike.

PrePass is a vehicle identification system that allows participating transponder-equipped vehicles to bypass designated weigh stations, port-of-entry facilities and agricultural interdiction facilities.

PrePass allows vehicles in motion to be electronically weighed while AVI antennas verify the identity of the truck and its certification.

K-TAG allows a motorist who has paid in advance for trips on the turnpike to travel through special electronic gates without having to stop at toll booths.

A small electronic device is set on the dash of the car K-TAG users are driving and is picked up by a sensor at the gate.

A program for the Northwest International Trade Corridor in Washington State electronically monitors containers on trucks. Roadside electronic readers track the cargo until it reaches its destination.

Marty Matthews, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Transportation, thinks the day is coming when similar monitors will be used in Kansas.

“I’m sure we are going to be seeing all sorts of electronic monitoring devices in the future,” Matthews said.