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National Road Pricing Conference

HOV-to-HOT Lanes Workshop
Workshop Tabletop Poster

Slide 1

HOV-to-HOT Scenario

A radial corridor connecting suburban communities with a downtown employment center is experiencing rapid development and growing congestion. There is no immediate funding for expansion of the facility. One response that has been proposed is to convert the existing HOV lanes to HOT. The area has a fairly long history of tolling.

General Purpose Lanes
  • Facility Characteristics
    • Length: 15 miles
    • 6 lanes with full shoulders
    • 165,000 AADT and growing
    • Peak period speeds as low as 30mph
  • Competing Facilities
    • Arterial serves suburban community at the end of the study corridor
    • Nearby radial freeway to be expanded in the near future
HOV Lanes
  • Facility Characteristics
    • 2 lanes
    • Buffer separated
  • Traffic Characteristics
    • Peak volumes 800-1000 vehicles per hour
    • Peak period speed 65 mph
  • Transit
    • Serves entire corridor
    • 2 Park and Ride lots
Graph. Graph showing Travel Time Savings Offered by HOV Lane. Speed and travel time savings versus time of day. Inbound times: 5:00-10:30. Outbound times: 14:00-19:30. HOV lane speed, GPL speed and travel time savings marked on the graph.
Bar Graph. Bar graph showing Traffic Volume by time-of-day. Peak hours include 6:00-9:00 am and 4:00-7:00 pm with the maxium number of vehicles per hour occurring between 7:00 and 8:00 am and 5:00 and 6:00 pm. Vehicles per hour doesn't begin to fall to its lowest level until 7:00 pm and steadily decreases until 2:00 am. The hours between the two peaks stay around 8,000 to 10,000 vehicles per hour.

Slide 2

Graphic. The diagram shows a 15-mile radial freeway with 8-lanes (2 High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes) and an Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT) of 165,000. The Freeway connects downtown employment on the lower left corner and a suburban community in the upper right corner. This community has a population of 20,000; a medium income of $75,000; 20 percent minority, and 1.9 automobiles per household. The freeway peak travel time on the general purpose lane from this suburban community to downtown is 20-30 minutes, the HOV peak travel time is 13-16 minutes. There are two park and ride locations along the freeway with transit service. The one located next to the suburban community in the upper right corner has a transit peak travel time of 25-30 minutes. The other park and ride lot is located next to a suburban community north of the freeway 8-miles from downtown. The freeway peak travel time on the general purpose lane from this suburban community to downtown is 12-16 minutes, the HOV peak travel time is 7-10 minutes. This suburban community has a population of 40,000; a medium income of $40,000, 40 percent minority, and 1.3 automobiles per household. There is a competing arterial connecting the suburban community and the downtown employment center below the radial freeway. The arterial is 20 mile in length with peak travel time of 25-45 minutes. There is a competing radial freeway straight north of the downtown employment. This competing freeway is very congested and is currently 4-lanes to be expanded to 6-lanes in the future. For the overall diagram there is a total travelshed population of 200,000; a $50,000 median income; 30 percent minorities, and 1.5 autos per household.
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