TY - JOUR
T1 - Measuring the quality of service for High Occupancy Toll lanes operations
AU - Liu, Xiaoyue
AU - Zhang, Guohui
AU - Wu, Yao Jan
AU - Wang, Yinhai
N1 - Funding Information: The authors acknowledge the support by NCHRP 03-96: Analysis of Managed lanes on Freeway Facilities research project. The authors also would like to thank Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT) for providing the loop detector data and transponder reader information.
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lane systems have been proposed as one of the most applicable countermeasures against freeway congestion. Under HOT lane operational scheme, a Single Occupancy Vehicle (SOV) can pay to access HOT lanes in exchange of travel time saving or enhanced trip reliability when excess HOT lane capacity is available. Compared with regular freeway facilities, HOT lane systems demonstrate unique characteristics in facility capacity, driver behavior, travel pattern, demand modeling, and trip reliability. This study aims at conducting a comprehensive performance analysis on two representative HOT lane systems of State Route 167 in Washington and I-394 MnPass in Minnesota based on the field data collected from traffic sensors and transponder toll tags. Performance measurements are proposed to quantify the quality of service for HOT lane operations. Three critical issues are addressed in this study: 1) the speed-flow relationships in HOT lane systems, 2) quantified system-wide travel time savings and travel time reliability achieved, 3) SOVs tolling incentives. Based on the empirical analysis and evaluation results for the SR 167 and I-394 MnPass HOT lane systems, operational problems and challenges are also identified. Although the HOT lane system preserves favorable travel reliability, under-utilized HOT lane capacities were observed. The existing tolling strategies may be modified for better SOV allocation for HOT lane usages and further optimize the overall HOT system operations. The research findings greatly advance our understanding on HOT lane system operation mechanisms and are complementary to the freeway facility performance analysis provided by Highway Capacity Manual 2000.
AB - High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lane systems have been proposed as one of the most applicable countermeasures against freeway congestion. Under HOT lane operational scheme, a Single Occupancy Vehicle (SOV) can pay to access HOT lanes in exchange of travel time saving or enhanced trip reliability when excess HOT lane capacity is available. Compared with regular freeway facilities, HOT lane systems demonstrate unique characteristics in facility capacity, driver behavior, travel pattern, demand modeling, and trip reliability. This study aims at conducting a comprehensive performance analysis on two representative HOT lane systems of State Route 167 in Washington and I-394 MnPass in Minnesota based on the field data collected from traffic sensors and transponder toll tags. Performance measurements are proposed to quantify the quality of service for HOT lane operations. Three critical issues are addressed in this study: 1) the speed-flow relationships in HOT lane systems, 2) quantified system-wide travel time savings and travel time reliability achieved, 3) SOVs tolling incentives. Based on the empirical analysis and evaluation results for the SR 167 and I-394 MnPass HOT lane systems, operational problems and challenges are also identified. Although the HOT lane system preserves favorable travel reliability, under-utilized HOT lane capacities were observed. The existing tolling strategies may be modified for better SOV allocation for HOT lane usages and further optimize the overall HOT system operations. The research findings greatly advance our understanding on HOT lane system operation mechanisms and are complementary to the freeway facility performance analysis provided by Highway Capacity Manual 2000.
KW - High-Occupancy Toll (HOT)
KW - Performance measreument
KW - Quality of service
KW - Single occupancy vehicle (SOV)
KW - Travel time reliability
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U2 - 10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.04.425
DO - 10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.04.425
M3 - Conference article
SN - 1877-0428
VL - 16
SP - 15
EP - 25
JO - Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences
JF - Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences
ER -