Evaluation of The Performance of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lane on A Multilane Route in Addis Ababa City: A Case Study on Lamberet Bus Terminal – Karalo Route.
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Date
2017-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Metropolitan areas have long had a history of experiencing vehicular traffic congestion particularly
during peak hours for different reasons. One overlooked factor among such contributory reasons
is the disorganized utilization of similar lanes by a mix of light automobiles with one or two
passengers on one hand and high occupancy vehicles with well over four passengers on the other
hand. High occupancy vehicles are usually public transportation motors that continuously make
frequent stops to pick up and deliver passengers from/to multiple destinations along a certain
corridor. Therefore, the blending of vehicles that make a non-stop through movement with such
high occupancy vehicles naturally results in a poor lane utilization and reduced level of service.
Addis Ababa is no stranger to this phenomenon as over one fourth of vehicular traffic on most
multilane highways comprises of high occupancy vehicles. The problem is magnified as traffic
management schemes that are non-infrastructural in nature are hardly exercised. This research
focused on quantifying to what extent level of service on multilane highways could be improved
by dedicating a single lane to high occupancy vehicles. Accordingly, a specific route was carefully
chosen as a case study and the currently existing level of service was determined. In order to
investigate the possible room for improvement, straight through lanes both in the middle and curb
side were assigned to high occupancy vehicles one after the other and the new level of service for
each lane was determined with the aid of a simulating software.
Results indicated that dedicating outer through lanes to high occupancy vehicles on the chosen
case study can result in better lane utilization and improved level of service from D to C as evident
from the registered shorter travel time as well as increased average speed.
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Keywords
HOV lane, traffic management, traffic flow, performance evaluation, simulation