Highways Agency

High Occupancy Lanes

Feasibility study

The Highways Agency is to pilot a scheme to cut congestion and speed-up motorway journeys by creating lanes for vehicles with two or more passengers.

High occupancy vehicle (HOV) or carpool lanes, either created by using the hard-shoulder or widening roads, are intended to encourage drivers to share cars.

A feasibility study took place between July and October 2004, in accordance with a brief issued in June 2004. The study looked at the possibility of introducing motorway High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes on four sections of motorway stipulated by the HA.

The purpose of the study was to determine if such lanes would be feasible and to rank those sites which were found to be feasible. Enforcement issues were not within the scope of this study. Given the feasibility nature of this study, a number of factors and issues have been identified but have not been assessed to date. These would be addressed by more detailed follow-up studies.

For this study, it was assumed that the HOV lanes would be open to cars and vans with more than one occupant, buses and coaches, and motorcycles.

The four motorway sections pre-selected by the HA were all on radial routes used by commuters to major cities:

• M3 junctions 2-3 and M1 junctions 13-7 (both London)
• M61 junctions 6-3 (Manchester)
• M62 junctions 25-27 (Leeds).

Investigations were carried out into the potential introduction of morning peak inbound HOV lanes at all four locations. In addition, the brief initially included investigation of a PM peak outbound lane on the M3 and was later extended to include the economic assessment of HOV lanes in both directions on the M1.

For the M3 and M61 sections, the starting point for investigation was taken as the existing situation i.e. dual three lane motorway standard. However, as there were proposals in the HA Targeted Programme of Improvements for widening of the M1 and proposals for future widening of the M62 are being considered, the starting point for these sections in this feasibility study was the widened dual four lane motorway layout.

Site visits and short term vehicle occupancy counts were carried out for each section of motorway under investigation.

Possible engineering solutions were investigated in terms of constraints, safety, costs and operation. Off-side lane, near-side lane, and hard shoulder HOV lane options were all considered, as was the question of whether or not to segregate the lanes. KBR used colleagues' in-house knowledge of HOV lanes in the USA and Australia to enhance these investigations.

• What the study concluded
• Download the detailed feasibility study (1.2MB PDF)
• News story: High occupancy lane trials announced
• Assessment Strategy for the M1 HOV Pilot