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
  • Truck traffic
  • Trucks
• 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.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/32703/dot_32703_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 680.85 KB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:b1e0adcf65152dbf5675d33b6c81f6bcde42bbf4717a2172e204db414c677ad5f59f31ea3518ab3cf0cc99869b6423ed6d51396650541ea515a67f6f7c51e04d