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This webinar was co-sponsored by ASCE's Transportation and Development Institute (T&DI) and ASCE Continuing Education

Instructor:  Mark Hallenbeck

Course Length: 1 Hour

Purpose and Background

This talk is designed to help engineers, planners and decision makers understand the key policy and technology trade-offs that drive the design and operation of HOT lanes. It is designed to prepare you to participate in those design efforts by educating you on how decisions in one area of HOT lane design or operation affect other design outcomes and requirements. HOT and other managed lanes can serve many objectives; maximizing throughput, generating revenue, providing mobility benefits to specific groups (transit, carpools, trucks), but emphasizing one outcome often limits your ability to achieve other objectives. For example, maximizing the revenue produced means offering fewer vehicles free use of the HOT lane. So, if the real goal is to make enough money to pay for new infrastructure, the HOT lane may not be able to provide free access to carpools. A decision to not provide free carpool access also simplifies the toll collection task, but may create negative public opinion of the project. Understanding the interaction between technical capabilities, politically important outcomes, and operational decisions is necessary to successfully design HOT lanes. This webinar introduces the technical, institutional, operational, and political issues that affect HOT lane design so that agencies that are looking into managed lane facilities know what questions to ask early in the process, and understand how the answers to those questions drive the ultimate design of their facility.

Primary Discussion Topics

  • Different policy and operational goals for HOT and other managed lanes
  • Different toll collection technologies and what each of those technologies imply for operations and enforcement
  • How enforcement can be performed and is impacted by operational policy and technology choices
  • Eligibility criteria for using the HOT lane and its impact on toll collection and enforcement technology
  • Pricing rules and strategies
  • Access rules and strategies
  • The need for communications with motorists and the general public
  • The need for public and decision maker buy-in on your HOT lane goals and operating strategy

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

  • Become familiar with the interaction between policy, technology, operational goals, enforcement, and costs (of implementation and operation)
  • Identify the types of questions you need to ask early in the design process
  • Recognize the interactive nature of the HOT design process as trade-offs are made between revenue generation, public/political acceptance of the design, and operational outcomes that
  • can be expected, as well as the iterative nature of those decisions as decision makers work through the trade-offs between policy goals, technological capabilities, costs, and revenue generation
  • Know the questions to ask regarding intended HOT facility outcomes, and how the answers to those questions interact to form the design

Webinar Benefits

  • Become familiar with the issues that drive HOT lane design
  • Understand the creative thinking that is needed to design a successful HOT lane
  • Understand the concepts that affect HOT lane design and operation

Assessment of Learning Outcomes

Students' achievement of the learning outcomes will be assessed via a short post-assessment (true-false, multiple choice and fill in the blank questions).

Intended Audience

  • Transportation engineers/planners
  • Government officials
  • Public decision makers considering HOT lanes and other managed lanes

Webinar Outline

  • Introduction to HOT lanes
  • Competing goals and objectives for HOT lanes
  • Vehicle eligibility and pricing
  • Toll collection technology and data communications
  • Enforcement
  • Institutional and administrative cooperation
  • Public communication – facility users and the general public
  • Conclusions
  • Questions

How to Earn your CEUs/PDHs and Receive Your Certificate of Completion

To receive your certificate of completion, you will need to complete a short on-line post-test and receive a passing score of 70% or higher within 1 year of purchasing the course.

How do I convert CEUs to PDHs?

1.0 CEU = 10 PDHs [Example: 0.1 CEU = 1 PDH]