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Reaction to the Managed Lane Concept by Various
Groups of Travelers
Mark W. Burris
Kaveh F. Sadabadi Maneesh Mahlawat
Stephen P. Mattingly
Jianling Li
Isradatta Rasmidatta
Alireza Saroosh
2007 TRB Annual Meeting January 2007
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Introduction

• Managed Lanes a set of lanes within a freeway
  that are actively managed by pricing (
  occupancy)
• Actively managed ? pricing often dependant on
  congestion

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Introduction
Toll Road Everyone pays regardless of vehicle
occupancy
Managed Lane Range
HOT Lane(s) SOVs pay, others are free (generally)
HOV Lane(s) No one pays due to vehicle occupancy
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Introduction

• Part of a larger project examining the benefits
  and drawbacks of supplying HOVs with preferential
  treatment on Managed Lanes.
• Project Sponsor TxDOT
• Matt MacGregor and Richard Skopic
• Has enormous potential impact on revenues and
  person throughput in Texas

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Introduction

• Initial steps
• Determine who is using/will use managed lanes,
  and
• What factors will most influence this decision

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Research Questions

• Will travelers in different cities react to MLs
  differently?
• What reasons do travelers give for preferring or
  not preferring MLs?
• Will previous toll lane users be more likely than
  others to use MLs?
• Are there specific characteristics that may be
  common among ML supporters or opponents?

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Survey Development

• Surveyed travelers in Houston and Dallas
• Already have HOV and HOT lanes and will soon have
  MLs

• Survey collected data on
• Personal Travel Patterns
• Managed Lane Opinions
• Travel Scenarios (Stated Preference)
• Demographics

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Data Collection

• Primarily collected on-line
• English and Spanish
• Widely advertised and many organizations provided
  web links
• Resulted in over 4000 valid responses, but too
  few from minority and low income respondents

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Data Collection
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Data Collection

• Additional responses from selected community
  centers and DPS offices
• Required both paper and laptop options

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Data Collection
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Data Weighting
Percentage in Each Ethnic Category
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Data Weighting

• Weighted our results to better represent Houston
  and Dallas traveler characteristics by
• 8 income groups
• 4 ethnic groups
• Toll versus non-toll road travelers

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Weighting Factors for Dallas Respondents who Used
Toll Roads
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Data Analysis

• 1. Will travelers in different cities react to
  MLs differently?
• Asked travelers if they were interested in using
  MLs.

ML Interest in Houston and Dallas by Ethnicity
A p-value 0.05 indicates we cannot be 95
certain the results are different for the two
cities
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ML Interest in Houston and Dallas by Household
Income
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ML Interest in Houston and Dallas by Trip Purpose
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ML Interest in Houston and Dallas by Mode
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Data Analysis

• 2. What reasons do travelers give for preferring
  or not preferring MLs?
• Top ranked reasons why respondents would use the
  MLs
• Able to travel faster than GPLs
• Travel time reliability
• Top ranked reasons why respondents would not use
  the MLs
• Other
• Do not want to pay the toll
• Other was dominated by one theme My taxes
  already pay for the roads

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Data Analysis
3. Will previous toll lane users be more likely
than others to use MLs?
The 4.4 difference was significant, but
relatively small
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Data Analysis
4. Are there specific characteristics that may be
common among ML supporters or opponents?
Significant difference at 95 level of confidence
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Effect of Household Income Level on Interest in
ML
Significant difference at 95 level of confidence
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Conclusions

• With the planned ML in Texas, providing
  preferential treatment to HOVs is a significant
  issue.
• The web survey provided a cost-effective survey
  method, but required follow up for some groups
• Overall, a lot of interest in MLs (approximately
  70)

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Conclusions

• Little difference in ML interest by city or trip
  purpose
• Interest jumped as income 100,000 or were in a
  vanpool
• Current toll road users were more likely to be
  interested in using MLs
• Travel time savings and reliability were highest
  rated reasons for ML use
• Tolls and roads already paid by my taxes were
  the main negative aspects