By Leftlane Staff
Monday, Apr 3rd, 2006 @ 8:18 am

A new study suggests HOV (high occupancy vehicle) or car pool lanes don’t help reduce congestion. The research was conducted by the University of California, Berkeley and California State University, East Bay. “HOV actuation imposes a twenty percent capacity penalty,” wrote researchers Jaimyoung Kwon and Pravin Varaiya. “The HOV restriction significantly increases demand on the other lanes causing a net increase in overall congestion delay. HOV actuation does not significantly increase person throughput.” The HOV lanes have a vehicle flow of 1600 per hour, compared with 2000 per hour for a standard lane. This difference offsets the people-moving capacity of these lanes. [source].

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