Title: Examining Incentives and Preferential Treatment of Carpools in Managed Lane Facilities: A State-of-the-Practice Review
Abstract: As managed lanes are considered throughout more than 25 North America cities, there is a need for research and guidance defining the role of carpools in toll managed lanes and the trade-offs between carpool exemptions and other project objectives. Increasingly, project objectives are reflecting not only mobility concerns but the need to generate revenue as well. As a result, allowing exempt or discounted users, such as carpools on toll managed lanes, requires an evaluation of the revenue impacts as well as the mobility interests such as person movement, operations, and emissions. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the existing body of knowledge regarding carpooling, facilities and incentives designed to encourage carpooling, and carpooling’s contributions to societal benefits (often measured by mode use, air quality impacts, and congestion mitigation). Following a review of literature, state, and regional entities involved in either operating existing managed lane facilities or planning for new facilities, they were interviewed to determine the rationale for setting their carpool policies. Findings from the state of the practice review include: 1) all facilities toll or intend to toll single occupant vehicles; 2) most facilities provide free access to HOV-3+; 3) in general, HOVs either pay the full toll or travel for free; 3) there are few discounted tolls; 4) most communities have a standard HOV toll policy across all facilities; 5) no factor uniformly rates as a high or low importance in regional decision making for carpool incentives; 6) implementing agencies consistently rated the following decision factors for HOV tolling policies either of high or moderate importance: enforcement of carpool vehicles, maximizing vehicular throughput, and uniformity/equity issues.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: review
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Cited By Count: 1
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