Browsing by Subject "Managed lanes"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Accessibility and Behavior Impacts of Bus-Highway System Interactions
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2019-04) Carlson, Kristin; Owen, Andrew
    This research presents a series of accessibility methodologies developed for bus-highway system interactions. Accessibility is defined as the collective number of jobs that can be reached by a particular mode of transportation within a given travel time period. The effects of managed lanes (ML), park-and-ride (PNR), and travel costs on walk-up transit accessibility are measured for the Minneapolis–Saint Paul (Twin Cities) region. Each methodology is introduced, supported by a literature review, and described in detail before scenario results are presented. The final analysis uses the ML and PNR methodologies to establish a comprehensive transit accessibility profile for the Twin Cities, which accounts for the dual impact of auxiliary transportation facilities.
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    Enhancing Managed Lanes Equity Analysis
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2023-04) Douma, Frank; Fonseca-Sarmiento, Camila; Lari, Adeel; Murphy, Daniel; Morris, Paul; Zhao, Jerry
    Planning and environmental studies involving managed lanes still have difficulty determining how to effectively evaluate project alternatives from an equity perspective. To most people, "equity" is ubiquitous with income, but this is a narrow focus that limits the scope of what can be considered equity, and indeed this can be true when it comes to managed lanes. As the Minnesota Department of Transportation analyzes the expansion of E-ZPass corridors, it is imperative it evaluates project alternatives from an equity perspective. The results of this study suggest that E-ZPass lane users are more racially diverse than users in the travelsheds. In two out of the four E-ZPass lane corridors, a higher proportion of E-ZPass lane users have household incomes below $100,000 compared to the travelsheds. Overall, there is a lower percentage of people with disabilities among E-ZPass lane users than those in the travelsheds. These results are driven by the makeup of E-ZPass lane users. In addition, this research project demonstrates the feasibility of incorporating quantitative and qualitative equity measures into the alternatives analysis process. The demonstration shows that the quantitative measures are all feasible with existing tools, provide meaningful information to the alternatives analysis process, and can be put into practice immediately.
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    Evaluation of the Effect of MnPASS Lane Design on Mobility and Safety
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2014-06) Stanitsas, Panagiotis; Hourdos, John; Zitzow, Stephen
    Dynamically priced High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes have been recently added to the traffic operations arsenal in an attempt to preserve infrastructure investment in the future by maintaining a control on demand. This study focuses on the operational and design features of HOT lanes. HOT lanes’ mobility and safety are contingent on the design of zones (“gates”) that drivers use to merge in or out of the facility. Existing methodologies for the design of access zones are limited to engineering judgment or studies that take into consideration undersized amount of observations. Case in point is the fact that the design philosophes between the two HOT facilities in Minnesota are diametrically opposed. Specifically, the I-394 freeway, the first dynamically priced HOT lane, was designed with a closed access philosophy, meaning that for the greater length of the roadway access to the HOT lane is restricted with only specific short-length sections where access is allowed. In contrast I-35W, the second HOT corridor, was designed with an open access philosophy where lane changes between the HOT and the GPLs are allowed everywhere except for a few specific locations. This contradiction generated questions as to effect each case has on safety and mobility. This study presents an assessment of safety and mobility on the two facilities as they operate today and highlights the issues present on either design. In addition, two design tools were developed, the first assisting in the optimal design of access zones based on traffic measurements, and the second allowing the assessment of the influence congested General Purpose Lanes can have on the mobility and safety of the HOT under different traffic conditions and utilization due to changes in pricing strategy.
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    A Tool for Designing MnPASS Access Spacing
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2018-03) Zitzow, Stephen; Parikh, Gordon; Hourdos, John
    Dynamically priced High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes have been recently added to the traffic operations arsenal in an attempt to preserve infrastructure investment in the future by maintaining a control on demand. This study focuses on the operational and design features of HOT lanes. HOT lanes’ mobility and safety are contingent on the design of zones (“gates”) that drivers use to merge in or out of the facility. Existing methodologies for the design of access zones are limited to engineering judgment or studies that take into consideration undersized amount of observations. This project capitalized on the results of an earlier project that performed an assessment of safety and mobility on the HOT facilities in Minnesota highlighted the issues involved in either designs. The product of this project, the MnPASS Access Design application, provides a tool for traffic managers and planners to examine the conditions within an existing or prospective corridor and the distribution of shockwave lengths which are expected. From the distribution of shockwave lengths, decisions can be made regarding access restriction on the HOT lane to ensure that drivers do not attempt to make lane changes at locations prone to dangerous conditions. This tool provides support for the managers and planners by aggregating the entire behavior of the HOT lane within the corridor into a framework for simplified consideration.