SKETCH PLANNING TOOLS FOR ARTERIAL HIGH OCCUPANCY VEHICLE (HOV) EVALUATION - RESEARCH IN PRORESS

This paper documents a research effort in progress, summarizing preliminary finding and outlining additional activities to be undertaken as the research continues over the next six months. The research centers around the evaluation of arterial high occupancy vehicle (HOV) treatments - specifically, tools to estimate demand for arterial HOV facilities as well as tools to assess a given treatment's impact on HOV travel time and general purpose traffic operations. The basic objective for arterial HOV facilities is the same as that for freeway HOV facilities - to provide travel-time savings for HOVs by enabling them to bypass congestion. A secondary objective is to provide travel time reliability for transit vehicles. As the consideration of arterial HOV treatments has become more widespread, the need for tools to evaluate them has increased. In light of this, and keeping in mind the unique challenges of these facilities, Parsons Brinckerhoff has undertaken the following research efforts focusing on sketch planning tools for the evaluation of arterial HOV treatments: assessment and refinement of arterial HOV demand estimation techniques, and development and refinement of arterial HOV analysis techniques. This paper presents initial results from these ongoing efforts as well as key research activities to be conducted as the research continues.