HOV lane objectives:
The freeway HOV lane system is intended to make travel in HOV modes attractive by offering reliable travel times at speeds equal to or greater than the general purpose lanes. To ensure that HOV lanes continue to provide a travel time advantage the Transportation Commission adopted a standard calling for the core freeway HOV system to maintain an average speed of 45mph or better, 90% of the time. By maintaining this level of speed and reliability the HOV system not only provides an incentive for HOV users, it also helps optimize the performance of the HOV lanes.

What information is presented?
The following pages show travel time and reliability data from the Washington Transportation Research Center's 2000 Report on HOV Lane Performance. Each page contains pairs of graphs depicting general purpose and HOV travel times for freeway corridors in the regional HOV system. Travel times are given for both the peak and off-peak directions.

The HOV and general purpose lane travel times are represented by the height of respective pink and blue lines in the graphs. It should be emphasized that the higher the line, the slower the trip.

Bullet points accompanying each graph summarize the data and describe whether the segment meets the adopted state standard for HOV lane performance.

What does the data show?

• HOV lanes provide a travel time advantage in all corridors.
• HOV lane travel time savings are greatest in the peak hours.
• From 8:00 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. the HOV lanes do not offer a travel time advantage.
• HOV lane speed and reliability fails to meet the state performance standard in several congested corridors during peak hours.