HOV bull

“I have not found an evaluation of an HOV lane in the last 10 years that contains the information needed to estimate the extent to which the lane motivated a shift to HOVs. Evaluations typically do not include travel times, volumes, and vehicle occupancies for both mixed flow lanes and the HOV lanes over the entire congested period both before and after the HOV lane was instituted. Without such complete information, it is not possible to determine if there was a real shift to HOVs or simply a shift of HOVs from shoulders of the peak to the peak of the peak. The fact that

mixed flow traffic rarely decreases in such studies suggests that the latter is the case. State DOTs should collect the required data and make it available to researchers so that unbiased assessments of the effectiveness of travel time savings in motivating HOV use can be assessed.”

Joy Dahlgren, Univ Cal Berkeley, Inst of Transp Studies in con-pric list posting.

Oh but then HOV might be revealed as yet another multi-billion dollar delusion, like intermodalism, light rail, advanced traffic management centers, and ‘alternative transportation.’ Wouldn’t want to risk that.