State of the Practice in High-Occupancy Vehicle System Performance Monitoring

Performance monitoring has been an integral element of high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) system development since the first HOV facilities were opened in the late 1960s. Much of the current HOV guidance has evolved from the lessons learned from performance reporting during these initial projects, and performance monitoring remains the only effective way to determine whether a particular facility or system has accomplished desired goals and achieves benefits. The state of the practice in HOV system performance monitoring in the United States reveals that generally all areas conduct some form of performance monitoring, although the range of goals and objectives, performance measures, and analysis methodologies varies widely among areas. Often there is a disconnect between HOV goals and performance monitoring, resulting in monitoring programs that do not focus on appropriate expectations for the HOV system, making it inherently difficult to adequately address the legitimacy of the HOV system through performance or to appropriately respond to changing performance conditions. Disparities in HOV performance monitoring programs need to be addressed to establish an analogous range of goals, data collection techniques, and performance measures. Appropriate goals and performance measures can then be articulated for each region as the basis for ongoing monitoring. Current experience demonstrates that meaningful HOV system performance can be accomplished for relatively limited resources when goals and performance measures are focused, data collection is automated, and data analysis sampling is applied. Recognizing the need to demonstrate the benefits of HOV facilities to address public expectations, monitoring agencies call for a commitment to advance data collection technologies and to provide the necessary resources to sustain and enhance the state of the practice in HOV system performance monitoring.