Abstract
The ever increasing use of private vehicles for daily commuting trips contributes to a rising level of congestion in metropolitan areas. The trip times for each driver grow constantly. Just this situation is approaching Linz (ca 200 000 inhabitants), which is the capital of Upper Austria and also the political and economical centre of the region. At one every workday morning heavily congested arterial road towards the city, since 1998 high occupancy vehicles (HOV) with 3 or more occupants (3+) have been permitted to use the existing bus lane too. The opportunity to save time should encourage commuters to share their cars and should result in a more efficient car use. Based on a study, by which the efficiency of that first HOV-lane in Austria was investigated, the effects and the influences on the trip duration, commuting behaviour, drivers attitudes towards the measure, bus drivers' and policemen's experiences as well as the environmental and public costs are described. Additionally, some imperfections are revealed concerning, for instance, the used traffic signs. As the main outcome the implementation of this HOV-lane proves to be a practical approach for improving the bad commuting traffic situation on a local level. However, it must be seen only as one of many measures that would be necessary to create a real sustainable solution for the whole metropolitan area.
Highlights
In and near metropolitan areas the risk of traffic congestion especially during the peak hours is high, mainly caused by the steady increasing use of private vehicles for daily commuting trips
A possible measure to improve the situation on arterial roads in particular is the implementation of the socalled high occupancy vehicles (HOY)-lanes
Individual statements in the questionnaires At least 37% of the interviewed drivers used the possibility to declare individual statements on their questionnaires. - About a quarter of them does not regard the measure as being sufficient to solve the congestion problem in the moming traffic on the B 127 towards Linz. - 18% of the drivers again stated their annoyance about the abusement of the HOY-lane and requested more enforcement. - 13% of the drivers regarded the installation of the HOY -lane as a good idea
Summary
In and near metropolitan areas the risk of traffic congestion especially during the peak hours is high, mainly caused by the steady increasing use of private vehicles for daily commuting trips. A possible measure to improve the situation on arterial roads in particular is the implementation of the socalled HOY-lanes. These are lanes kept for high occupancy vehicles and, respectively, forbidden for vehicles with less than a prescribed number of passengers on board. The opportunity to save time on daily trips to work should encourage commuters to share their cars and should result in a more efficient car use: the same number of commuters are travelling in less cars. Roads with HOY-lanes are quite usual in the USA. In October 1998 the first Austrian HOY-lane was put into operation. The objective was to mvestigate the efficiency of this new measure
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