Preferential lane use for heavy trucks : final report.

Details

• Creators:
  Chrysler, Susan T.
• Corporate Creators:
  Texas A&M Transportation Institute
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Heavy Duty Trucks Highway Traffic Control Managed Lanes State Of The Practice Trucks Truck Traffic
• Publication/ Report Number:
  PRC 15-39 F
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Edition:
  Final report
• Corporate Publisher:
  Texas A&M Transportation Institute
• Abstract:
  Freight movement is vital to the state of Texas and the nation. With several major ports, throughtruck
  
  routes, and distribution centers, Texas roadways carry millions of tons of freight each year.
  
  However, congestion on Texas roadways creates delay for commercial freight vehicles, leading
  
  to increases in transportation costs for shippers, which may in turn drive up costs to consumers.
  
  In fact, the American Trucking Research Institute (ATRI) ranked Texas second in the nation for
  
  the cost of congestion to the freight industry in terms of operating costs and lost productivity (1).
  
  One potential method for reducing the cost of congestion for freight vehicles, and possibly
  
  reducing congestion for all vehicles, is to provide trucks with alternate routes or separate
  
  (preferential) lanes that allow them to bypass congestion. This can be accomplished by
  
  developing new facilities or converting lanes and/or whole facilities for exclusive use by trucks.
  
  However, these options would require the development of new infrastructure, which could
  
  require significant funding, or the conversion of general purpose lanes to truck-only lanes, which
  
  could be problematic from a public acceptance standpoint and may affect the operations of the
  
  other lanes. There are currently very few truck-only lanes or facilities in the United States, and in
  
  most cases, these facilities were developed in very specific conditions with exceptionally high
  
  freight volumes, such as roadways serving ports. As such, existing freight volumes might not
  
  warrant consideration of truck-only lanes or facilities in many areas.
  
  One idea that is being explored in some urban areas is to allow trucks access to managed lane
  
  facilities. Managed lane facilities typically involve general purpose lanes that are open to all
  
  vehicles but have separate (managed) lanes for special classes of vehicles. In most cases, these
  
  special classes include high-occupancy vehicles (HOVs) or transit vehicles. Furthermore, some
  
  facilities may allow a vehicle that is not considered a special class to access the managed lanes
  
  with the payment of a toll.
  
  This report examines the issues associated with truck use of managed lane facilities. It discusses
  
  current managed lane facilities that allow for truck access and presents some findings and lessons
  
  learned from these experiments. This report also discusses some of the safety, operational, and
  
  infrastructure issues that should be considered when allowing trucks to access managed lanes.
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:b1e0adcf65152dbf5675d33b6c81f6bcde42bbf4717a2172e204db414c677ad5f59f31ea3518ab3cf0cc99869b6423ed6d51396650541ea515a67f6f7c51e04d
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/32703/dot_32703_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 680.85 KB ]