Effectiveness of California s High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) System

Effectiveness of California s High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) System Jaimyoung Kwon Department of Statistics California State University, East Bay Hayward, CA 94542, USA Tel: (510) 885-3447, Fax: (510) 885-4714 jaimyoung.kwon@csueastbay.edu Pravin Varaiya* Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences University of California, Berkeley CA 94720, USA Tel: (510) 642-5270, Fax: (510) 642-7815 varaiya@eecs.berkeley.edu * Corresponding author January 22, 2007, version 1 June 7, 2007, version 2

Kwon/Varaiya 1 ABSTRACT The effectiveness of California s 1,171 mile High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) system is assessed using peak hour traffic data from 700+ loop detector stations over many months. The study reaches the following conclusions. (1) HOV lanes are underutilized: 81% of HOV detectors measure flows below 1,400 vehicles per hour per lane (vphpl) during the PM peak hour. (2) Many HOV lanes experience degraded operations: 18 percent of all HOV miles during the AM peak hour and 32 percent during the PM peak hour have speeds below 45 mph for more than 10 percent of weekdays. (3) HOV lanes suffer a 20% capacity penalty, achieving a maximum flow of 1,600 vphpl at 45 mph vs. maximum flow above 2,000 vphpl at 60 mph in general purpose (GP) lanes. (4) HOV lanes offer small travel time savings. The mean savings over a random 10-mile route on an HOV lane vs. the adjacent GP lane is 1.7 minutes and the median is 0.7 minutes; however, HOV travel times are more reliable. (5) Travel time savings do not provide a statistically significant carpooling incentive. (6) A system with one HOV lane and three GP lanes carries the same number of persons per hour as a system with four GP lanes. (7) HOV lanes reduce overall congestion slightly only when the general purpose lanes are allowed to become congested. Despite these findings, HOV facilities can play a useful role in a well-managed freeway system in California. In particular, they can be useful if there is a significant number of buses or vanpools; as a 2-lane HOV/HOT facility, which eliminates capacity loss; and, with efficient metering, as a HOV/HOT bypass at the on-ramps. Keywords: high occupancy vehicle; HOV effectiveness; HOV capacity; carpooling; HOT lanes; San Francisco Bay Area; Los Angeles; congestion; travel time saving

Kwon/Varaiya 2 1 INTRODUCTION California s High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) system began in 1970; by 2007 it comprised 1,171 (directional) lane-miles of freeway, with 803 lane-miles located in the South of the state and 366 in the North. Following passage of a bond measure in November 2006, the California Transportation Commission authorized plans for an additional 245 HOV lane-miles, with construction to begin by 2012, at an estimated cost of between $10 and $30 million per lane-mile, depending on location. HOV facility design varies. Virtually all are one-lane facilities: the HOV lane is lane 1 or the innermost lane, between the median to its left and general purpose (GP) lanes to its right. There are three noteworthy exceptions to the one-lane rule: the 20 lane-mile two-lane HOV/T (HOV or Toll) facility in SR-91 in Orange County; the 16 lane-mile reversible two-lane HOV/T facility in I-15 in San Diego; and the 43 lane-mile two-lane HOV facility including an exclusive elevated transit way in I-10 in Los Angeles. In the south, an HOV lane is often separated by a striped buffer, with gaps for entry and exit. Being nearly twice as wide, a buffered HOV lane is more expensive than a GP lane. In the north, HOV lanes are not separated, and vehicles may enter or exit at any place. HOV operation varies. In the South most HOV restrictions are in place 24 hours of the day. In the North HOV restrictions are time-actuated: lane 1 is restricted to carpools on weekdays, generally during 5-9 AM and 4-7 PM; at other times it is a GP lane. A few HOV facilities carry a significant number of buses and vanpools. Only 37 miles in the South and 32 miles in the North are restricted to 3+ passenger vehicles, the rest admit 2+ vehicles. In 2005 the California legislature authorized permits to 75,000 hybrid single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) giving access to HOV facilities. The HOV system s official goals are to increase the people-moving capacity of the freeway system by encouraging carpooling; reduce overall congestion; provide travel time savings to HOV users; increase system efficiency by allowing HOVs to bypass congestion; and decrease emissions (Legislative Analyst s Office, 2000, p.3). The California Transportation Commission s goals for the planned expansion are restricted to improving travel times and reducing delay; encouraging carpooling and decreasing emissions are not mentioned (California Transportation Commission, 2006, p.2). This paper summarizes an empirical study of how well the HOV system meets these goals, based on peak period traffic data from hundreds of loop detectors over several months. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all of the data used in the study are publicly available at the website of the California freeway Performance Measurement System or PeMS (Freeway Performance Measurement System, 2006) As explained in Section 2 most studies of HOV effectiveness merely give summary statistics of HOV system benefits in terms of the numbers of vehicles and persons carried, and estimates of travel time savings. However, these studies do not address system costs. The present study, by contrast, compares HOV benefits with the benefits that would have occurred if the HOV lane

Kwon/Varaiya 3 were replaced by a GP lane. That is, the study relates HOV benefits to the foregone opportunity cost represented by general purpose use of the facility. The study assesses HOV benefits in terms of: (1) Utilization of HOV lanes; (2) Congestion in HOV lanes; (3) Capacity of HOV lanes; (4) Travel time savings in HOV lanes; (5) Effectiveness of HOV lanes in inducing carpooling; and (6) Effect of HOV lanes on overall (HOV and GP lanes) congestion. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Previous studies are critically reviewed in Section 2. Section 3 discusses the data used and the methodology that is followed. Section 4 evaluates HOV utilization and congestion, and arrives at the apparently paradoxical conclusion that many HOV facilities have segments in which the facilities are under-utilized and other segments in which they are congested. Section 5 resolves this paradox by showing that onelane HOV facilities suffer a 20 percent capacity loss. Section 6 estimates travel time savings incurred by driving over an HOV facility compared with driving on the adjacent GP lane. Section 7 brings together data from the Census Bureau and PeMS to investigate the hypothesis that for some travelers the attraction of HOV lanes overcomes the inconvenience of carpooling. Section 8 and 9 respectively compare person throughput and overall congestion in a system with 3GP + 1 HOV lane and a system with 4GP lanes. Section 10 assesses how well HOV lanes meet system goals. Section 11 collects the study s conclusions. 2 PREVIOUS STUDIES This section reviews some of the best representative publications from the vast literature on HOV effectiveness. Proceedings of the 11 th International Conference on HOV Systems At the conference, held in 2002, speaker after speaker pointed to the inadequacy of data to measure HOV performance, including comparison with GP lanes just the first 40 pages of the proceedings contain seven such references (Federal Highway Administration, 2003, pp. 7,17,18,20,29,32,38). The proceedings reveal that in the absence of such data, reports of HOV effectiveness frequently recite numbers purporting to be estimates of vehicle and person throughput and travel time savings, without mentioning the source or statistical significance of the underlying data number of days, locations, or accuracy of the measurements and usually with no comparison with GP lane performance. Despite their tacit presumption that HOV is a good thing, the speakers were troubled by two phenomena under-utilization and congestion evidenced by peak period volumes below 800 vph (vehicles per hour) and, at the same time, speed below 45 mph in many HOV facilities. Two remedies were repeatedly offered. First, as one speaker exhorted, we have to market, market, market the [HOV] program (Federal Highway Administration, 2003, p.28). The second remedy was to replace HOV lanes by managed lanes a catchall category denoting priority access for express trips, buses, commercial vehicles, zero emission vehicles, high energy efficiency vehicles, tolled vehicles and, possibly, HOVs.

Kwon/Varaiya 4 Traffic flow theorists will note that under-utilization apparently violates Downs law of peakperiod expressway congestion, and if marketing is to be effective, Wardrop s first principle must not hold. On the other hand the call for managed lanes is an implicit admission of the failure of HOV facilities to live up to expectation. Caltrans Studies Caltrans Districts 1 periodically publish HOV performance reports. A notable example is the 2006 HOV Report for District 7 (Caltrans District 7, 2006) which, in addition to a description of the HOV system, estimates HOV volumes and travel times over particular routes. These estimates are based on a single measurement. For example, the Report states that HOV volume at postmile 39.12 on I-210W between 6:30 and 7:30 AM on 28 March, 2006 was 1,459 vehicles (Caltrans District 7, 2006, p.10). Since traffic is stochastic, a single measurement like this is the outcome of a random draw. Indeed, from PeMS, one finds that the HOV volume at the same location between 6:00 and 7:00 AM on weekdays between 14 March, 2006 and 13 April 2006 varied by 24% from a minimum of 1,358 to a maximum of 1,803, so a single measurement is not a statistically reliable estimate. Given the unreliability of these estimates, it is a remarkable coincidence that the Report finds a steady increase in carpool volumes each year between 1992 and 2004 on freeways with HOV lanes and a steady decrease in carpools on freeways without HOV lanes (Caltrans District 7, 2006, p.14). Similarly, the Report gives travel times of 37min-44 sec and 54 min-17 sec along the HOV and GP lanes, respectively, on a 27.5 mile route on I-210W, experienced by two drivers departing at 7:30AM (the date is not specified, nor is it clear that the trips occurred on the same day), and calculates a travel time saving of 17 min (Caltrans District 7, 2006, p.12). This saving, too, is a random draw. Once again, notwithstanding the precision of these measurements, they cannot serve as reliable estimates of average travel times as shown by the data presented in Section 6. Other California Studies Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) commission HOV studies, a good example being the HOV Performance Program Evaluation Report (The PB Study Team, 2002). We ignore the HOV performance data cited in the PB Study Team report, since these are selected from Caltrans District 7 reports, the 2006 edition of which was considered above. The original part of the Evaluation Report comprises market research [to survey] the attitudes, awareness and behavior of Los Angeles County residents, commuters, transportation providers, and elected representatives regarding carpool lanes. Unfortunately, the posed questions were not designed to reveal respondent preferences among alternative policy choices. Thus it is not surprising that 80% responded affirmatively to the question: Do you support or oppose carpool lanes on Los Angeles freeways? A more revealing question would have been Do you support or oppose conversion of an existing GP lane to an HOV lane? or, Do you support the addition of an HOV or GP lane? (The conversion of a GP lane on the Santa Monica freeway to an HOV lane was rescinded within 10 weeks, following public opposition.) Similarly, the multiple choices offered in response to the question: Why do you carpool or vanpool? led to 57% selecting time savings and 15% selecting companionship. But a better question would have sought to discover how many carpooled with family members vs. casual carpools. The 1 Caltrans divides the state into 12 Districts; the urban districts studied here are District 3 (Sacramento), 4 (San Francisco), 7 (Los Angeles), 8 (San Bernardino), and 12 (San Diego).

Kwon/Varaiya 5 report creates the impression that its purpose was to demonstrate public support for HOV lanes, rather than to discern preferences among comparable transportation alternatives. Other studies Transportation agencies outside of California conduct HOV performance studies, which follow the same format as the Caltrans report (Federal Highway Administration, 2003) but provide much less detail, so we do not consider them. (Several studies are reviewed in Federal Highway Administration, 2003, pp. 51-59.) One unusually comprehensive study (Martin et al. 2002) is that of the 16-mile HOV lane on I-15 in Salt Lake Valley, Utah, which was opened in May, 2001. Conducted one year later, the study assesses HOV performance based on volume and speed data from traffic monitoring stations, and manual field surveys of vehicle occupancy, violations and travel time. Volume and speed data were collected at several locations on I-15 for five AM and PM peaks. Unfortunately, the study does not discuss the accuracy of vehicle occupancy data, which turns out to be critical. The study s estimates of the overall average vehicle occupancy (AVO) during the AM and PM peaks in the HOV and GP lanes are given in the Table 1 (see Martin et al. 2002, p. 27, Figure 4.3-3). [Table 1] The study says that buses comprise 2.5% of HOV vehicles and 27.6% of HOV persons. Denoting by V the number of HOV vehicles and by P the number of persons in those vehicles, we have AVO=P/V. Hence the number of HOV cars is (1-0.025)V and the number of persons in those cars is (1-0.276)P. So the AVO of HOV cars is AVO_cars = (1-0.276) /(1-0.025) AVO, which works out to AVO_cars = 1.74 and 2.01 in the AM and PM peaks, respectively. Since this is a 2+ HOV lane, AVO_cars = 1.74 is surely wrong. And since the cars include a significantly number of vanpools (Martin et al. 2002, p. 23, Figure 4.3), AVO_cars = 2.01 is also likely incorrect. The claim that the overall AVO increased by 20% from about 1.11 before HOV to about 1.33 after HOV (Martin et al. 2002, p.40) is also likely to be incorrect. In the first place, the table above shows that post-hov AVO in the GP lanes is 1.17-1.22 which is larger than the pre-hov AVO of 1.11; but this is implausible since post-hov, the GP lanes would carry fewer carpools, vans or buses. And in the second place, before HOV the GP lanes would have carried all the bus traffic with its large number of passengers, so the pre-hov AVO should be significantly larger than 1.17-1.22. One is forced to conclude that manual estimates of AVO, crucial to all the calculations, are likely to be quite inaccurate. (How were passengers in buses and vans, comprising more than 35% of all persons, counted, for example?) In summary, the studies reviewed here all suffer from severe data inadequacies making their estimates unreliable and casting doubt on their conclusions about the effectiveness of HOV facilities. 3 DATA AND METHODOLOGY In June 2007, the California freeway traffic sensor system comprised 9,658 vehicle detector stations (VDSs) with 24,577 loop detectors monitoring 30,572 directional miles (not lane-miles). During the study period, January-June 2005, this system included 1,700 VDSs monitoring 780 of the 1,171 lane-miles of the state s HOV system. The California freeway Performance Measurement System or PeMS receives in real time 30-second measurements of count and occupancy from every loop detector. PeMS processes these raw data and estimates 5-minute

Kwon/Varaiya 6 lane-by-lane averages of volume or flow, speed, congestion delay and other performance measures, as well as travel times over selected routes with departures every 5 minutes. PeMS also estimates for each day and each loop detector, the reliability of that detector. The raw data and the estimates are stored in a database accessible from the PeMS website. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all of the data used in the study are taken from the PeMS database. In the sequel loops are indexed by their VDS ID. Consider a segment with n VDSs located at postmiles x 1 < x 2 < < x n. To the VDS at x i is associated the section of the freeway midway between x i and the adjacent VDSs at x i-1 and x i+1, i.e., from (x i-1 + x i )/2 to (x i + x i+1 )/2. This section is L i = (x i+1 - x i-1 )/2 miles long. Let t = 1, 2,, T be the 5-minute intervals comprising the peak period in question. From PeMS one obtains v k (x i, t) and q k (x i, t), the average speed (mph) and total volume or flow (count) in lane k at x i during interval t. Vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) and vehicle-hours traveled (VHT) for the segment at lane k over a peak period is computed as VMT = q ( x, t) L (veh-miles), and k i t k i i qk ( xi, t) Li VHTk = (veh-hours), i t vk ( xi, t) in which the summation over t is taken over the peak period considered. Depending on the pupose, we will aggregate data at various temporal levels including 5-minute, hour, and entire peak period. Also, multiple VDS will sometimes be aggregated to estimate quantities over segments. Exactly which spatial/temporal aggregation level is used will be clear in each context. Travel times used in Section 6 are computed from loop detector data by integrating the spacetime field of travel times or travel time field (the inverse of the velocity field vk ( xi, t) ) along the trip trajectory. See Kwon and Petty, 2005, for details. We use elementary statistical methods, the most complex being the least squares linear regression. Rather, we rely more on presentation of empirical data and simple analyses, providing details as the need arises. 4 UNDER-UTILIZATION AND DEGRADED OPERATION We collect reliable 5-6PM peak hour speed and flow measurements from 700+ stations for 128 weekdays, January-June, 2005; data from the remaining stations were unreliable. Data from a station are considered reliable if the station reports good hourly data for more than half of all weekdays considered. Data are considered good if the loop measurements pass the statistical tests implemented in PeMS and described in its help pages PeMS and in Chen et al., 2003. The unreliable stations are distributed across all HOV facilities (Kwon, 2005), so the stations included in the study are unlikely to present location bias. The six month-long data set overcomes day-of-week bias. The resulting 86,831 data samples yield the joint probability histogram of HOV speed and flow. [Figure 1 here] The heat plot of Figure 1 displays this probability histogram. One sees that The mode of the distribution occurs at a speed of 70 mph and a flow of 900 vphpl;

Kwon/Varaiya 7 The maximum flow is 1,600 vphpl at 45 mph: 92% of the samples have flows under 1,600 vphpl; 30% of the samples show peak PM flow under 800 vphpl. [Table 2 here] Table 2 lists summary statistics after disaggregating these data by Caltrans district. The statistics support the conclusion that many HOV segments are under-utilized. Caltrans considers HOV lane capacity (LOS-C) to be 1,650 vphpl (Caltrans, 2003), but 80% of the samples have flows under 1,400 vphpl (of which 8% show speeds below 45 mph, indicating congestion), and 30% have flows under 800 vphpl. Under-utilization of the HOV system prompted the 2005 legislation granting 75,000 SOV hybrid vehicles access to HOV facilities. In order to admit SOV hybrids federal law requires that the facility not be degraded : A facility is considered degraded if vehicle speed drops below 45 mph for 10 percent of the peak hours during a six-month period (U.S. House of Representatives, 2006, Sec. 1121). Many California HOV lanes are degraded. From Table 2, 17% of the samples exhibit speeds below 45 mph during the PM peak. A more detailed study (Kwon, 2005) stratifies these data by HOV segments and finds that a substantial portion of HOV locations in California is already degraded Overall, 18 percent of all HOVmiles are degraded during the AM peak and 32 percent are degraded during the PM peak. The degraded HOV locations are distributed across most HOV facilities, making it difficult to permit hybrid SOV access to under-utilized portions of the HOV system, while denying access to its degraded portions. Thus, it is impractical to admit SOV hybrids while conforming to the federal requirement. 2 The same difficulty will prevent conversion of an existing 2+ HOV lane to HOV/T operation. The seeming paradox of California s system is that in most HOV lanes there are portions that are under-utilized while other portions are congested (degraded). This paradox is resolved upon observing that HOV lanes suffer a 20% capacity loss, in comparison with GP lanes. 5 HOV CAPACITY LOSS General purpose lanes exhibit maximum flows of 2,000 to 2,400 vphpl at a free flow speed of 60 mph (Jia et al., 2001, Chen and Varaiya, 2001). By contrast, Figure 1 shows that HOV lanes achieve maximum flows of only 1,600 vphpl at a comparatively low speed of 45 mph. This is an upfront capacity penalty of at least 20%. 3 2 California followed Virginia, which allows hybrid SOVs access to I-95. But a January, 2005 Washington Post editorial claimed that as a result traffic in I-95's HOV lanes is starting to slow to the crawl associated with the regular lanes. The editorial concludes, Whatever the idea's original logic, it has outlived its usefulness and ought to be dropped (Washington Post, 2005). The Virginia DOT Task Force has recommended that the exemption for hybrid SOVs be allowed to expire in July 2006 (Virginia Department of Transportation, 2005). A NY Times columnist predicts a similar fate for California (Tierney, 2005). 3 The maximum measured flow of 1,600 vph is not a result of insufficient demand as some have suggested but a capacity loss, since the speed is already below 45 mph.

Kwon/Varaiya 8 Figure 2 gives a better appreciation of the capacity penalty. The four plots are time series of 5- min flow vs. occupancy from 4-10AM, July 11-14, 2006, which includes the morning peak period. Data for two locations on 210W are displayed. For each location there are two plots: the one on the top is for the HOV lane, directly below which is the plot for the adjacent GP lane at the same freeway location. [Figure 2] The maximum flow reached in the HOV lane is 150 veh/5 min or 1,800 vphpl, whereas the maximum flow in the GP lane is 220 veh/5-min or 2,640 vphpl, so the capacity of the HOV lane at these locations is 32 percent lower. Second, the speed at which the HOV lane achieves its maximum flow (the speed is proportional to flow/occupancy) is significantly below its speed at lower flows, whereas the GP lane reaches its maximum flow at the same free flow speed as at lower flows. The reduction in speed with increasing flow in the HOV lane and the resulting capacity penalty may be explained as follows. An HOV lane operates as a one-lane highway, so its speed is governed by the low speed vehicles the snails. As the GP lane is slower, a faster HOV vehicle cannot pass the slower snail in front of it. As HOV volume increases, there are more snails, leading to a drop in speed. 4 The snail phenomenon is also evident in data from the San Francisco Bay Area, with its timeactuated HOV lanes. Figure 3 gives scatter plots of 5-minute flows and speed at one location in 880-N on weekdays in August, 2004. For the same lane and location the samples on the left are taken during the HOV actuation period, 4-7PM; those on the right are during 7-9PM, after HOV actuation. Snails reduce flow and speed during HOV actuation, but after 7PM they move to the slower lanes and the maximum flow increases by 18% from 140 to170 veh/5-min; the speed also increases. [Figure 3] 6 TRAVEL TIME SAVINGS We estimate HOV travel time savings by comparing HOV and adjacent GP lane speeds at the same locations. Figure 4 is a scatter plot of data from 700+ locations statewide for 5-6PM on four weekdays, April 3-7, 2006. Each of the 3,700 samples gives the HOV and adjacent GP lane speeds at the same location on one of the four days. Clearly the two speeds are highly correlated (the correlation is 0.76), with HOV speeds being slightly higher for low GP lane speeds. 4 Three factors may account for the snails: A certain fraction of HOV drivers may prefer to be slow; others may be slow because of the discomfort or perceived danger due to slower vehicles in the adjacent GP lane; and, as congestion in the GP lane worsens, violators may dart into and out of the HOV for short time intervals with increasing frequency, forcing HOV drivers to slow down. The discomfort explanation is also offered in (Martin et al. 2002, p.35).

Kwon/Varaiya 9 To understand the implications for travel time savings we calculate the HOV and GP lane travel times over the same 10-mile route using a randomly picked speed sample. Figure 5 gives the resulting probability distribution of travel time savings. The average travel time saving is 1.7 min, the median is 0.7 min, and the standard deviation is 13.9 min. The probability that the savings exceed 4 min is only 0.19 and the probability is 0.14 that travel along the adjacent GP lane is faster. Caltrans HOV planning guidelines ask of a proposed HOV facility: Will the project provide at least one minute of time savings per mile for an average commute trip? A total savings of five to ten minutes is desirable (Caltrans, 2003, Ch 1, p.4). The data imply that the vast majority of existing HOV lanes fails the test: Only 15% of these random 10-mile routes offer savings of 5 min and only 7% offer 10 min savings. [Figure 4] [Figure 5] While the mean travel time savings offered by HOV is minuscule, HOV travel is more reliable (less variable) than GP lane travel. To see this, we compare travel times along specific routes. Figure 6 displays the median, 25 th and 75 th quartiles of travel times along the HOV lane and the adjacent GP lane as a function of departure times on weekdays during Jan 1-May 31, 2006 for an 18-mile route on I-405. 5 The route is shown on the map. At 7:45AM the median values are 22.5 min for HOV vs. 24 min for GP lane 1, which implies a maximum savings of only 1.5 min less than 0.1 min/mile. (At other times, the savings are lower.) The maximum difference between the 75 th quartiles is 5 min, which is larger, whereas the difference between the 25 th quartiles is negligible. Thus we may conclude that HOV travel times are slightly more reliable. (The greater reliability is characteristic of the 10 other routes we have examined; it is also explained by Figure 4.) [Figure 6] Figure 7 repeats the displays in Figure 6 for a 14.5-mile route along SR-91E. Although shorter in length, the savings are much larger for this route because of the different design and operation of the facility: This is a two-lane HOV/toll facility, barrier-separated from the GP lanes. The two lanes eliminate snails, and the tolls maintain speed closer to free flow speed of 60 mph, even when demand is higher. By contrast the GP lanes are allowed to become congested. [Figure 7] 7 CARPOOLING INCENTIVE Since HOV lanes suffer a large loss in vehicle-carrying capacity and offer small travel time savings in comparison with GP lanes, the most important justification for HOV facilities is that they increase person-carrying capacity by encouraging carpooling. We consider person-carrying 5 Travel time is calculated by integrating the travel time field as explained in Section 3 above.

Kwon/Varaiya 10 capacity in the next section, and focus here on the carpooling incentive. The hypothesis is that for some travelers the attraction of HOV lanes overcomes the inconvenience of carpooling. The initial federal 3+ HOV requirement was soon relaxed because of an insufficient number of three-person carpools. The 2000 LAO report reaches no conclusions about the statewide impact of HOV lanes on carpooling because of lack of data, but says that the national decline in average vehicle occupancy (AVO) from 1.3 in 1977 to 1.14 in 1995 indicates that carpooling has become more inconvenient (Legislative Analyst s Office, 2000, pp. 1, 3). The 2003 American Community Survey reports that the proportion of work-commute trips in California that are carpooled declined from 13.99% in 2000 to 12.60% in 2003, the difference being statistically significant at the 90 percent level (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003). In the SCAG region, with 660+ HOV lane-miles one-fifth of the nation s carpooling declined from 14.3% to 11.4% between 2000 and 2004, while the share of drive-alone commuting increased from 73% to 76.7%. The decline was widespread: from 16.5% to 12.1% in San Bernardino County and from 15.6% to 14.1% in Riverside County between 2003 and 2004 (Southern California Association of Governments, 2005, p. 69, 70). Over time the attraction of HOV travel is weakening. 6 Using the long form data provided by the decennial Census in conjunction with the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data, a study finds that in 2001, 83% of carpools for homebased work trips had people from the same household (up from 75% in 1990), 97% of whom had only household members (McGuckin and Srinivasan, 2005, p.29) a phenomenon dubbed fampools. 7 In conclusion, it appears that carpooling is declining and carpool formation for work trips depends almost entirely on the work locations of members of the same household. Despite the secular decline in carpooling, the belief persists that time savings offer a carpooling incentive. For example, in a 2001 Los Angeles telephone survey with 3,273 respondents, 57% believed that travel-time savings is a common motivation for carpooling; and 82% of respondents who actually carpooled identified time savings as their main reason for carpooling (The PB Study Team, 2002, pp.29-32). 8 We devise indirect statistical tests of the theory that travel time savings encourages carpooling. Although HOV travel is not much shorter on average, Figures 4 and 5 show considerable daily variation in travel time saving. This leads to the testable hypothesis that an HOV facility s share of daily traffic (vehicle-miles traveled or VMT) increases as the adjacent GP lane speed decreases. We test the hypothesis for the four complete HOV segments in the San Francisco Bay Area listed in Table 3. [Table 3] 6 According to a Census Bureau report released on 13 June, 2007, carpooling dropped between 2000 and 2005 as the share of people driving alone to work increased slightly to 77 percent; more recent statistics through March 2007 show that few drivers are joining carpools despite the increase in gasoline prices (Associated Press, 2007). 7 If home-to-work trips with non-work stops are included, 26% of carpools included a non-household member in 2001. 8 72% of 1,300 Bay Area carpool lane users indicated HOV lanes greatly reduces commute travel time (DKS Associates, 2003, p.6).

Kwon/Varaiya 11 For each HOV segment and each weekday during 2001-2005, we calculate the HOV segment s share S of the vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) in lanes 1 (HOV) and 2 (adjacent GP lane), defined as VMT1 S =. VMT1 + VMT2 VMT k is the daily peak period traffic in lane k measured in vehicle-miles traveled during the HOV actuation period. We also calculate V 2, the speed in lane 2, averaged over the HOV segment and actuation duration. Our hypothesis is that HOV share S will increase as lane 2 speed V 2 decreases. Figure 8 gives a scatter plot of HOV share vs. lane 2 speed for each study segment: Each point shows the average over the HOV actuation AM or PM period (as indicated in Table 3) for one weekday. The solid straight line is the least-squares fit to the linear regression S = α + βv2. Table 4 lists the regression coefficients and their t-values and R 2 values for the regression, together with the fitted values of S for V 2 equal to 30 and 60 mph. In all cases, degrees of freedom are 1 003 and slope parameters β are statistically significant with P-value of zero. [Figure 8] [Table 4] Consider the plot for 101S. In agreement with the hypothesis, there is a (small) downward trend in the scatter plot: As lane 2 speed decreases by 50% from 60 to 30 mph, the HOV share increases by 10% from 0.40 to 0.44. But even this small increase in HOV share is illusory. The number of HOV-qualified vehicles or carpools is what we want to measure. It differs in two ways from the number of HOV-using vehicles, which is what we can measure. When speed in lane 2 is high, say 60 mph or more, some HOV-qualified drivers will not use the HOV lane, and so the number of HOV-using vehicles underestimates the number of HOV-qualified vehicles. On the other hand, when speed in lane 2 is low, say 30 mph or less, the number of HOV lane violators will increase, and so the number of HOV-using vehicles overestimates the number of HOV-qualified vehicles. We adjust the share S of HOV-using vehicles to obtain S adj, the share of HOV-qualified vehicles. Violation rates vary in different HOV segments in the Bay Area (see Caltrans District 4, 2002, p.19, and Table 4). Caltrans considers a 10 percent violation rate acceptable (DKS Associates, 2003, p.5). We assume a 5 percent violation rate when speed in lane 2 is 30 mph. We also assume that 5 percent of HOV-qualified drivers do not move into the HOV lane when lane 2 speed is 60 mph. The adjusted share S adj is shown in Table 3. Figure 5 also shows the adjusted regression line for S adj. Evidently, carpooling is unresponsive to short-term (daily) changes in travel- time savings. It may be that it takes a long time to make carpooling arrangements and so one should not expect a daily carpooling response to travel time savings. We estimate long-term (annual) response.

Kwon/Varaiya 12 Figure 9 displays box plots 9 of average speed in lane 2 and share of traffic in HOV lane in each year. Consider the segment in 101N, AM peak. Speed V 2 (median and quartiles) in the adjacent GP lane (lane 2) decreases steadily over 2001-2005 even though the HOV annual share S of traffic (median and quartiles) decreased over 2001-2004 as well. Similarly, there is no close correlation between V 2 and S observable in the other study sites. This finding also repudiates the hypothesis that long term increases in travel-time savings encourage carpooling. [Figure 9] 8 PERSON THROUGHPUT HOV lanes are under-utilized, degraded, and yield small average travel time savings that seem not to provide carpooling incentives. It may still be the case that a freeway with an HOV lane carries more persons per hour has a larger person throughput than if the HOV lane were replaced by a GP lane. To evaluate this claim we compare two freeway configurations: 1HOV+3GP (one HOV, 3 GP lanes) vs. 4GP (4 GP lanes). The comparison must account for the fact that person throughput depends on how efficiently the freeway is operated, the capacity of the HOV and GP lanes, and the average vehicle occupancy. To clarify the issues, we first work out a numerical example comparing the two freeway configurations, under two different operating regimes and two sets of capacity values. Efficient Operation, perhaps using ramp metering and traveler information, maintains free flow speed of 60 mph in a GP lane and 45 mph in the HOV lane; Inefficient Operation allows traffic to become congested lowering speed to 30 mph in a GP lane but maintains 45 mph in the HOV lane. In the Moderate Capacity freeway, flow is 2,000 [1,800] vphpl in the GP lanes and 1,400 [1,300] vphpl in the HOV lane under Efficient [respectively, Inefficient] Operation. In the High Capacity freeway, flow is 2,400 [2,000] vphpl in the GP lanes and 1,600 [1,500] vphpl in the HOV lane under Efficient [respectively, Inefficient] Operation. Lastly, the average vehicle occupancy (AVO) values are 1.1 for GP and 2.1 for HOV vs. 1.2 for the all GP lane freeway. We show later that, based on San Francisco Bay Area data, the assumed values are defensible. [Table 5] With these assumed values, one can calculate the freeway vehicles per hour per lane (FVPHPL), the freeway persons per hour per lane (FPPHPL), and the freeway AVO (FAVO) for the four different scenarios. The results are displayed in Table 5. Several conclusions follow. First, under Efficient Operation, the 4GP freeway carries more persons per hour as well as more vehicles per hour than the 3GP+1HOV freeway. Under Inefficient Operation, the 3GP+1HOV lane carries more persons but fewer vehicles per hour. In either case, the difference in person throughput is less than 0.2 %, i.e., the (1HOV+3GP) freeway and the 4GP freeway provide the same person throughput. 9 In a box plot the heavy horizontal line is the median, the box marks the 25 th and 75 th quartiles, the whiskers extend the range beyond the box by 1.5 times the inter-quartile range. Samples beyond the whiskers are outliers.

Kwon/Varaiya 13 Second, Efficient Operation increases person and vehicle throughput by 10%, compared with Inefficient Operation, which is far more significant than the presence or absence of an HOV lane. In Table 5, TT stands for the average time a person traveling 10 miles would take under the four scenarios. Again, the importance of Efficient Operation is striking: It reduces the travel time by more than 60 %. Third, under Efficient Operation the GP lane at 60 mph is faster than the HOV lane at 45 mph. But then drivers will avoid the HOV lane until its flow reduces to 1,200 vphpl (see Figure 1) so that its speed reaches the GP lane s 60 mph. This will lead to under-utilization of the HOV lane and a reduction in the person throughput for the (1HOV+3GP) freeway. Thus: If the freeway operation maintains free flow in the GP lanes, the HOV lane will be under-utilized; and the HOV will be well-utilized only if the GP lanes are congested. Lastly, we pause to consider two arguments. The first argument purports to show that HOV lanes increase person throughput because HOV lanes carry more persons during the peak hour than the adjacent GP lanes (Caltrans District 4, 2002, p. 60; DKS Associates, 2003, p.8). (This is also the case in Table 5.) But this is only because HOV lanes skim off carpools from GP lanes. The argument does not address whether an HOV lane increase person throughput overall, which is the goal of HOV facilities. The second argument says the comparison in Table 5 between efficient and inefficient operation is incorrect because the low speed-low volume in the GP lanes is an indication of high demand rather than inefficient operation. But this is erroneous, because the relation between demand and actual flow or volume depends on operational control. On the one hand, efficient ramp-metering will maintain free flow conditions, even if demand exceeds capacity. On the other hand, once congestion starts, it can persist even if demand falls below capacity. We now present data that lend credence to the numerical values assumed in Table 5. It is not possible to compare the same freeway under two different configurations, 1HOV+3GP vs. 4GP. But the San Francisco Bay Area freeways come close to this requirement because lane 1 is an HOV lane during the HOV actuation period and a GP lane at other times. So we will compare speed and flows in lanes 1 and 2 in 880-S, during and immediately adjacent HOV actuation periods, at the same location (VDS 400486). Figure 10 gives plots of flow (veh/5-min) and speed (mph) in lanes 1 and 2 from 2:30-7:30PM, including the HOV actuation period, 3-7PM, during which lane 1 is an HOV lane. From the speed data, we see that free flow conditions (efficient operation) prevail before 3PM and after 7PM, with (GP) lane 2 flow of 2,000 vphpl. From 5-6:30PM, during the HOV actuation period, both HOV and lane 2 are congested; before 3PM and after 7PM, both lanes 1 and 2 are in free flow. [Figure 10 here] At 3PM, under free flow, lanes 1 and 2 both reach a flow of 170 veh/5-min or 2,000 vphpl at free flow speed, which supports the value of 2,000 vphpl in Efficient Operation and Moderate Capacity. During 5-6:30 PM the HOV lane has an average volume of 120 veh/5-min or 1,440 vphpl and speed of 55 mph, while lane 2 has an average flow of 150 veh/5-min or 1,800 vphpl

Kwon/Varaiya 14 and speed of 30 mph. These values are similar to those in Table 5 for Inefficient Operation and Moderate Capacity. (Other examples, similar to Figure 10, may be found in Chen et al., 2005.) Lastly, we need the values of AVO. AVO estimates are notoriously unreliable (Levine and Wachs, 1994) and we consult various sources. According to Caltrans District 4 Office of Highway Operations, 2002, p. 66, in the section of 880-S that includes VDS 400486, during the afternoon peak the HOV lane AVO is 2.1 and the AVO on the three non-hov lanes is 1.1. We used these estimates in Table 5. AVO estimates during HOV de-actuation for 880-S are not available. The Household Travel Survey (Caltrans 2002, Table B) gives an AVO of 1.5 for all trips and 1.1 for home-to-work trips; for the Bay Area, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission gives an AVO of 1.4 for all trips and 1.1 for home-to-work trips (Caltrans 2002, Table 8.10); lastly, the California Life-Cycle Benefit/Cost Analysis Model uses a default of 1.38 for peak period AVO (Booz Allen & Hamilton, 1999, p.2-12). Table 5 we uses 1.2 for the 4GP freeway, which is conservative. In summary, the values assumed in Table 5 are defensible, in the absence of direct estimates. 9 OVERALL CONGESTION Table 5 allows us to compare the overall congestion delay in the (1HOV+3GP) and the 4GP freeways. Congestion delay is defined as the additional vehicle-hours traveled (VHT) while driving below 60 mph. Under Efficient Operation the 4GP freeway causes no congestion delay, because all vehicles move at 60 mph. In the (1HOV+3GP) freeway, there is congestion delay in the HOV lane where speed is 45 mph. However, as noted, this situation cannot persist, because the HOV lane will lose enough flow until its speed reaches 60 mph. Under Inefficient Operation the travel time in the (1HOV+3GP) freeway is slightly smaller than in the 4GP freeway, which implies that the latter causes greater congestion. We may conclude that an HOV lane reduces overall congestion slightly, if the GP lanes become very congested. 10 THE VALUE OF HOV LANES The official goals of the HOV system are to increase the people-moving capacity of the freeway system by encouraging carpooling; reduce overall congestion; provide travel time savings to HOV users; increase system efficiency; and decrease emissions (not considered in this study). The data analyzed here indicate that statewide these goals are not met, except that HOV travel times are more reliable than GP travel times and overall congestion is slightly reduced in segments where the GP lanes are very congested. These conclusions hold at three levels of data aggregation that were used: state, district and individual HOV facility. There are niche uses where HOV lanes do help. One niche comprises the few HOV lanes that carry a significant number of buses or vanpools. The HOV AVO for these would be much higher than shown in Table 5; in turn such high AVO will lead to a larger person throughput. Another niche is created by a 2-lane HOV/HOT facility, which eliminates snails and the resulting capacity loss.

Kwon/Varaiya 15 A third niche is illustrated by the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge. The entrance to the bridge is well- metered, preventing congestion on the bridge. There is no HOV lane on the bridge itself, but HOVs can bypass the metering. The HOV bypass encourages carpools, which avoid the delay at the metering lights; at the same time the metering achieves the efficiency gains noted in Table 5. This example could be generalized: Impose efficient metering and permit HOV/HOT bypass at the on-ramps. Federal regulations encourage HOV lanes in any freeway expansion, and do not permit conversion of an HOV lane to a GP lane. Thus a state seeking to extent its freeway system is likely to build an HOV lane, even if that is less effective than a GP lane. If HOV lanes are here to stay, the study suggests directions for improving their operation. First, given the large amount of under-utilization (Table 3), it may be better to move towards timeactuated rather than 24-hour HOV restrictions, similar to the San Francisco Bay Area. The time actuation should depend on location and day of week. A detailed study shows systematic day of week and time of day variation in HOV utilization (Kwon, 2005). Second, in the Bay Area, HOV actuation at the same time all along an HOV lane creates a huge congestion in the GP lanes (visible in Figure 10). A much better approach may be to stagger actuation times to minimize this shoulder effect. Such an approach needs investigation. Lastly, buffered HOV lanes appear not to further HOV goals compared with non-buffered lanes. The possibility that they provide better safety has not been proven to our knowledge. 11 CONCLUSION This appears to be the first statewide empirical study of California s HOV system. The study finds: (1) HOV lanes are underutilized: 81% of HOV detectors measure flows below 1,400 vehicles per hour per lane (vphpl); (2) Many HOV lanes suffer degraded operations: 18 percent of all HOV-miles during the AM peak hour and 32 percent during the PM peak hour have speeds below 45 mph for more than 10 percent of weekdays; (3) HOV lanes suffer a 20% capacity penalty: HOV lanes achieve a maximum flow of 1,600 vphpl at 45 mph; in contrast general purpose lanes record maximum flows above 2,000 vphpl at 60 mph; (4) HOV lanes offer small travel time saving: The mean saving over a random 10-mile route traveling on an HOV lane vs. GP lane 1 is 1.7 minutes, and the median is 0.7 minutes; however, HOV travel times are more reliable; (5) Travel time savings do not to provide a statistically significant carpooling incentive; (6) A system with one HOV and three GP lanes carries the same number of persons per hour as a system with four GP lanes; (7) HOV lanes reduce overall congestion slightly only when the GP lanes are allowed to become congested. Despite these negative findings, HOV facilities can play an important role in a well-managed overall freeway system in California. In particular, they can be useful if there is a significant

Kwon/Varaiya 16 number of buses or vanpools; as a 2-lane HOV/HOT facility, which eliminates snails and the resulting capacity loss; and, with efficient metering, as a HOV/HOT bypass at the on-ramps. From these findings, we arrive at three major conclusions: As currently operated, the HOV system does not meet its goals except in niche uses, which are important in themselves, but not in the overall state system; By operating the freeway system efficiently maintaining free flow traffic much more is to be gained than by adding HOV lanes. Indeed efficient operations will reduce the value of HOV lanes, which will become under-utilized; An efficient operation combined with HOV bypass at the on-ramps will permit reaping the gains of efficiency together with significant travel time savings for HOVs. There are plans to extend California s HOV system. The San Francisco Bay Area expansion plan builds on the premise, Carpooling, vanpooling and express bus services have become increasingly more important to meeting the mobility needs of the region (DKS Associates, 2003, p.2) The premise seems false: carpooling is unlikely to grow. A far more cost-effective solution is to work toward an efficient freeway system. 12 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This study is supported by grants from Caltrans to the California PATH Program. The contents of this paper reflect the views of the authors who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the data presented herein. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views of or policy of the California Department of Transportation. This paper does not constitute a standard, specification or regulation. We are grateful to many people for critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper, especially Walt Brewer, Tim Buchanan, Fred Dial, Tarek Hatata, Lisa Klein, Dave Mootchnik, Karl Petty, Robert Poole, Asfand Siddiqui, Alex Skabardonis, Ramakrishna R. Tadi, Martin Wachs, and John Wolf. 13 REFERENCES Associated Press, 2007, More Commuters Driving to Work Alone, June 13, 2007. Booz Allen & Hamilton, 1999. California Life-Cycle Benefit/Cost Analysis Model. California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), 2002. 2000-2002 California Statewide Household Travel Survey. California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), Division of Traffic Operations, 2003. High Occupancy Vehicle Guidelines. http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/systemops/hov/hov_sys/guidelines/. Accessed July 8, 2006. California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), District 4, 2002. 2001 District 4 HOV Report. California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), District 4, Office of Highway Operations, 2002. HOV lanes in the Bay Area. California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), District 7. 2006. 2006 HOV Annual Report. http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist07/aboutdist7/pubs/hov_annual/2006/06%20hov%20annual %20Report%20rev%2010_19_06.pdf. Accessed June 10, 2007.

Kwon/Varaiya 17 California Transportation Commission, 2006. Corridor Mobility Improvement Account Program Guidelines. http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/transprog/ibond/cmiaprogram.pdf. Accessed June 10, 2007. Chen, C., Varaiya, P., 2001. Max. flow in D12 occurs at 60 mph. October 2001. http://pems.eecs.berkeley.edu/resources/papers/d12maxflow.pdf Accessed July 24, 2006. Chen, C., Kwon, J., Skabardonis, A., Varaiya, P., 2003. Detecting errors and imputing missing data for single loop surveillance systems. Transportation Research Record, 1855, pp. 160-167. Chen, C., Kwon, J., Varaiya, P., 2005. An empirical assessment of traffic operations. H.S. Mahmassani (Ed) Proceedings, International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory, pp. 105-124, Elsevier. DKS Associates, 2003. 2002 High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lane Master Plan Update. Prepared for Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Caltrans District 4 and the California Highway Patrol Golden Gate Division. Federal Highway Administration. 11 th International Conference on High-Occupancy Vehicle Systems Conference Proceedings, October 2002, Seattle, WA. Report FHWA-OP-03-100, May 2003. Freeway Performance Measurement System (PeMS), 2006. http://pems.eecs.berkeley.edu. Accessed June 21, 2006. Jia, J., Varaiya, P., C. Chen, Petty, K., Skabardonis, A., 2001. Maximum throughput in LA freeways occurs at 60 mph v.4. http://pems.eecs.berkeley.edu/resources/papers/throughput4.pdf Accessed July 8, 2006. Kwon, J., 2005. HOV Lane Operation and the Impact of Introducing Hybrids Vehicles to HOV lanes in California. Draft final report prepared for California Department of Transportation. Available at http://www.sci.csueastbay.edu/~jkwon/papers/hov_2005.pdf. Accessed June 15, 2007. Kwon, J, Petty, K., 2005. A Travel Time Prediction Algorithm Scalable to Freeway Networks with Many Nodes with Arbitrary Travel Routes, Transportation Research Record no. 1935, Transportation Research Board, pp. 147-153. Legislative Analyst s Office, 2000. HOV lanes in California: Are they achieving their goals?. www.lao.ca.gov/2000/010700 hov/010700 hov lanes.html. Accessed July 7, 2004. Martin, P., Perrin, J., Lambert, R., Wu, P. 2002. Evaluate Effectiveness of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lanes, Utah Department of Transportation, Report UT-03.26. www.udot.utah.gov/download.php/tid=296/ut-03.26.pdf. Accessed June 10, 2007. McGuckin, N., Srinivasan, N., 2005. The Journey-to-Work in the Context of Daily Travel. www.trb.org/conferences/censusdata/resource-journey-to-work.pdf. Accessed June 21, 2005 Levine, N., Wachs, M., 1994. Methodology for Vehicle Occupancy Measurement. Report submitted to the California Air Resources Board and the California Department of Transportation (Office of Traffic Improvement). PB Study Team, 2002. HOV Performance Program Evaluation Report. Prepared for Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), 2005. The State of the Region 2005: Measuring Regional Progress. http://www.scag.ca.gov/publications/pdf/2006/sotr05/sotr05_fullreport.pdf. Accessed July 20, 2006.

Kwon/Varaiya 18 Tierney, J., 2005. The Road to Hell is Clogged with Righteous Hybrids. New York Times, Opinion, August 30, 2005. U.S. Census Bureau, 2003. American Community Survey 2003 Multi-Year Profile: California, Table 4. http://www.census.gov/acs/www. Accessed June 21, 2005 U.S. House of Representatives, 2006. Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, Public Law 109-59. http://www.washingtonwatchdog.org/documents/cong_reports/house/109/housereport109 _203.html Accessed July 13, 2006. Virginia Department of Transportation, 2005, HOV Enforcement Task Force Makes Recommendations To Safeguard HOV lanes, News Release (1/6/2005) http://www.virginiadot.org/news/newsrelease.asp?id=nova-nr05-02 Accessed June 14, 2007 Washington Post, 2005. The Hybrid s Free Ride. Editorial, p. B06. January 16, 2005.

Kwon/Varaiya 19 14 FIGURE LEGENDS, TABLES, FIGURES AND SCHEMES. Figure 1 Probability histogram of hourly speed and flow at 700+ HOV loops, 5-6PM, Jan-June, 2005... 24 Figure 2: 5-minute average flow vs. occupancy at two locations on 210W, 4-10AM, July 11-14, 2006. The top plots are for the HOV lane, directly below are the plots for the adjacent GP lane at the same location... 25 Figure 3 5-minute average flow vs. speed during HOV actuation, 4-7 PM (left), and after HOV actuation, 7-9 PM (right), at VDS 400488 on 880-N, during weekdays of August 2004.... 26 Figure 4 Scatter plot of HOV vs. adjacent GP lane hourly speeds over 5-6PM at 700+ locations on four weekdays, April 3-7, 2006.... 27 Figure 5 Probability distribution of HOV travel time savings over a random 10-mile route... 28 Figure 6 Lower (25 th ), median and upper (75 th ) quartiles of travel times along HOV (top) and adjacent GP lane (bottom) as a function of departure time for the 18-mile route on I-405, starting at Lakewood Blvd. Data for weekdays, January 1-May 31, 2006... 29 Figure 7 25 th, median and 75 th quartiles of travel times along HOV (top) and adjacent GP lane (bottom) as a function of departure time for the 14.5-mile route on SR91E, from SR-55 to I- 15. Data for weekdays, January 1-May 31, 2006.... 30 Figure 8 Share of VMT in HOV lane (S) vs. average speed (V 2 ) in lane 2 in four HOV segments, for 2001-2005. Each point displays the AM or PM peak for one weekday. Also shown are least squares linear regression lines through data points (solid lines) and adjusted lines (dashed lines).... 31 Figure 9 Average speed (V 2 ) in lane 2 (top) and share of traffic (S) in HOV lane (bottom) for 2001-2005 for the four study segments. Box plots show each year s distribution of daily S or V 2.... 32 Figure 10 Five-minute average flows (left) and speeds (right) in lanes 1 and 2 at VDS 400352 on 880-S, August 4, 2004, during HOV actuation (3-7PM) and outside that period.... 33

Kwon/Varaiya 20 AM AVO PM AVO HOV 2.35 2.72 GP 1.17 1.22 Table 1 Average Vehicle Occupancy (AVO) during the AM and PM peaks in the HOV and GP lanes. Source: Martin et al. 2002, p. 27, Figure 4.3-3. District Flow 800 vphpl (%) Flow 1400 vphpl, speed 45 mph (%) Flow 1400 vphpl (%) Speed 45 mph (%) 12 20 17.6 77 16 8 15 12 79 19 7 38 5.7 89 25 4 33 15 81 6.5 3 35 21 55 37 Statewide 30 15 81 17 Table 2 Statistics of HOV flows and speeds, by Caltrans district.

Kwon/Varaiya 21 HOV segment Limits Length (miles) Min. Occ HOV actuation period I-80E Powell St to Rte 4 14.1 3 5-10AM, 3-7PM* I-880N Mission Blvd to South of Rte 237 16.9 2 5-9AM, 3-7PM* SR-101S San Mateo Co. Line to Cochrane Rd 34.8 2 5-9AM, 3-7PM* SR-101N Cochrane Rd to San Mateo Co. Line 34.0 2 5-9AM*, 3-7PM * Peak hours considered Table 3 The HOV segments.

Kwon/Varaiya 22 Freeway α β Multiple R 2 value S for V 2 = 30 S for V 2 = 60 Violation rate (%) S adj for V 2 = 30 S adj for V 2 = 60 I-80E 0.4933 (0.0038 a, 131.22 b ) -0.00093 (0.000065, -14.38) 0.171 0.465 0.437 6.5(PM) 0.442 0.459 I-880N 0.5024 (0.0034, 146.32) SR-101S 0.4608 (0.0027, 168.43 ) SR- 101N 0.4468 (0.0040, 112.73) -0.00112 (0.000067, -16.87) -0.00086 (0.000056, -15.23) -0.00103 (0.000072, -14.19) 0.221 0.469 0.435 4.4(PM) 0.445 0.457 0.1879 0.435 0.409 3.0(PM) 0.413 0.429 0.1672 0.416 0.385 4.5(AM) 0.395 0.404 a: standard error b: t-value Table 4 Regression coefficients (t value) and selected values of S = α + β V 2.

Kwon/Varaiya 23 Efficient Operation Inefficient Operation Moderate Capacity High Capacity 3 GP 1HOV 4GP 3GP 1HOV 4GP VPHPL 2000 1400 2000 2400 1600 2400 AVO 1.1 2.1 1.2 1.1 2.1 1.2 FVPHPL 1850 2000 2200 2400 FPPHPL 2385 2400 2820 2880 FAVO 1.29 1.20 1.28 1.20 Speed 60 45 60 60 45 60 TT 11.03 10 10.99 10 VPHPL 1800 1300 1800 2000 1500 2000 FVO 1.1 2.1 1.2 1.1 2.1 1.2 FVPHPL 1675 1800 1875 2000 FPPHPL 2167.5 2160 2437.5 2400 FAVO 1.29 1.20 1.30 1.20 Speed 30 45 30 30 45 30 TT 17.90 20 17.85 20 Table 5 Numerical example comparing a 3GP+1HOV lane vs. a 4GP lane freeway, with moderate or high capacity, under efficient and inefficient operations.

Kwon/Varaiya 24 Figure 1 Probability histogram of hourly speed and flow at 700+ HOV loops, 5-6PM, Jan- June, 2005.

Kwon/Varaiya 25 Figure 2: 5-minute average flow vs. occupancy at two locations on 210W, 4-10AM, July 11-14, 2006. The top plots are for the HOV lane, directly below are the plots for the adjacent GP lane at the same location.

Kwon/Varaiya 26 880-N, VDS 400488 880-N, VDS 400488 100 100 speed mph 80 60 40 20 0 20 70 120 170 speed mph 80 60 40 20 0 20 70 120 170 flow veh/5-min flow veh/5-min Figure 3 5-minute average flow vs. speed during HOV actuation, 4-7 PM (left), and after HOV actuation, 7-9 PM (right), at VDS 400488 on 880-N, during weekdays of August 2004.

Kwon/Varaiya 27 100 90 80 70 HOV speed 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 Adjacent GP lane speed Figure 4 Scatter plot of HOV vs. adjacent GP lane hourly speeds over 5-6PM at 700+ locations on four weekdays, April 3-7, 2006.

Kwon/Varaiya 28 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0-14 -12-10 -8-6 -4-2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 More HOV TT saving (minutes) Figure 5 Probability distribution of HOV travel time savings over a random 10-mile route.

Kwon/Varaiya 29 Figure 6 Lower (25 th ), median and upper (75 th ) quartiles of travel times along HOV (top) and adjacent GP lane (bottom) as a function of departure time for the 18-mile route on I- 405, starting at Lakewood Blvd. Data for weekdays, January 1-May 31, 2006.

Kwon/Varaiya 30 Figure 7 25 th, median and 75 th quartiles of travel times along HOV (top) and adjacent GP lane (bottom) as a function of departure time for the 14.5-mile route on SR91E, from SR-55 to I-15. Data for weekdays, January 1-May 31, 2006.