In the HOT lane

The enthusiasm for managed lanes in the US has helped America develop and fund new road capacity – and keep traffic moving. Can the same be done here in the UK?

In the last decade, there has been increasing interest across the US in the development of so-called high occupancy/toll (HOT), express or managed lanes. These are new traffic lanes, built beside existing highways, whose use is limited to high occupancy vehicles (HOV) or to vehicles whose drivers are prepared to pay tolls for their use. Building on an existing programme of HOV lanes and benefitting from a federally supported ‘pilot programme’, a growing number of municipally owned and operated projects and HOT lanes have been developed. Now, with sophisticated electronic road charging readily available, the economists’ dream of road charging to reflect congestion can be met and tolls can be varied in response to the traffic conditions, with toll levels changing dynamically.

Against a background of federal prohibition of tolling the interstate network and popular resistance to tolling other existing facilities, HOT lanes also bring the only opportunity of introducing new roads which can be charged for – and which can then provide the opportunity for the funding of the new construction costs through user paid fees. In response to this, there is now a growing programme of privately-funded managed lane developments such as the SR91 in California and the I635 in Dallas, Texas.

As part of air quality control measures, the US Department of Transportation (DoT) has supported the introduction of HOV lanes on many of the congested urban networks. Only cars with at least two people are allowed to use lanes from which all other traffic is banned. Most of these lanes run beside the ‘normal’ highway, separated from the main carriageway only by painting on the roads. In a limited number of cases, HOV lanes are offered on separate structures which allow ‘high occupancy’ traffic to bypass highly congested interchanges.

While the first HOT experiments tended to use this capacity, the latest projects are now much more dramatic. Utilising the very considerable funds that the tolling can generate, private investors such as Transurban/Fluor and Cintra have won concessions to build what are effectively new highways which operate directly beside the existing freeway – and offer significant new capacity.

Perhaps the most dramatic example will be the LBJ I-635 Managed Lanes project, currently under construction by a consortium led by Cintra. The existing highway – a loop around the north of Dallas, Texas – has up to six lanes in each direction and on certain sections carries as many as 200,000 vehicles in a day. Costing perhaps up to $3bn, the new managed lanes will provide another 4-6 lanes of capacity – built beside or below the existing facility in a cut and cover tunnel under the median and outer lanes.

This road will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in toll revenue each year. Another substantial project under construction is on the I-595 in Florida. Here, the consortium led by ACS Infrastructure,
is building 13 miles of managed lanes on structures elevated above the existing highway. An engineering challenge – in great part because of the requirement to keep the present highway fully operational throughout the construction period – it is interesting to note that, rather than taking revenue risk, this concession will receive availability payments from the Florida DoT. This is one of the first such deals in the transport sector.

One of the earliest of the major privately built managed lane schemes (and one of few yet in full operation) is the SR91 Express Lanes project in California. This is now operated by the public sector and is a simple ten mile single entrysingle exit system running down the median of a highly congested commuting route – offering a congestion-free and reliable alternative to daily travelers.

This project does not have a dynamic tolling system, instead relying on a prepublished toll charging grid. There is a complex schedule of toll charges which vary by direction, hour and day of the week, and which allows the operator to price the peak periods aggressively. As part of work carried out some three years ago for a bidder for the I635 Managed Lanes project, we examined the performance of the SR91. The tolls charged for the use of the system across the day are shown below.

Tolls varied widely from $1.95 off-peak to $9.00 in the peak. Even at the lowest level (effectively 19.5 cents/mile), these tolls were well above the ranges of tolls normally seen in the US, which fall to as low as 3-5 cents/mile on many of the major public toll facilities. At the highest levels – a dollar
price which even at today’s high price levels would buy nine litres of gas at the pump – these must still represent some of the highest charges seen across the world.

Our research also suggested that the time savings realised through using the managed lanes were not dramatic. However usage was surprisingly high. Off-peak, time savings were minimal, with the managed lane actually slower than the free competitor during the night. Yet even then, 10% of users chose to pay to use the managed lane. During the peak, the time saving was still under 20 minutes. Although at this level a traveller’s value of time would need to be above $27/hour to gain benefit from using the toll lanes, our survey showed that around one third of travellers did indeed chose to do so.

What can the UK learn from this? First there is what seems to be a cultural difference. To build new capacity successfully within the existing rights of way, this capacity will need to be provided either under or over the existing roadway – with big engineering and big costs. In the US, there seems to be almost an enthusiasm for building dramatic new roads under or over the existing structure, but remaining within the existing right of way. This allows the planners in the US to add more capacity to their network.

In the US, it seems that the public welcome this. Would this be the case in the UK? But if these new lanes could be provided and if the capacity was charged for its use, there are surely exciting opportunities. It allows government to provide new capacity, funded in great part from tolls paid by the user. Tolling for this additional capacity will do two things. First it would allow new funds to be generated – certainly a benefit in times of fiscal constraint. Second it would create a differentiated system – with access limited by willingness to pay – so that a high level of service will be provided to those who chose to use it. This would bring wide economic benefit to an economy stifled by road congestion on its trunk network.

Historically, there hasn’t been much political appetite in the UK for road user charging, but at a time when we’re facing huge cutbacks in spending, managed lanes could provide the much-needed funds to keep our roads moving.