High-occupancy vehicle (HOV) facilities in Virginia have proven to be effective in enhancing mobility. This success, along with the availability of electronic toll collection technology, has led the Commonwealth to expand the HOV system and pursue the implementation of high-occupancy toll (HOT) facilities in the state. Although these facilities hold promise to help address the growing demand for travel in Virginia, a significant challenge in achieving their potential lies in the ability to enforce occupancy requirements in a manner that has minimal impact on the operation of the facilities. This has proven to be a challenge for HOV facilities and will be an even more complex undertaking on HOT facilities. The purpose of this study was to examine occupancy enforcement on HOV and HOT facilities. This examination focused on three areas: assessing the impact of existing manual violation enforcement techniques on HOV violation rates; exploring the feasibility of using new technologies/techniques to improve the effectiveness of violation enforcement; and assessing the impact of violation enforcement techniques on the operations of HOV/HOT lanes. The results of the research indicate that current saturation enforcement techniques are not effective in reducing violation rates. However, no proven technologies are currently available that offer the potential to automate enforcement of occupancy restrictions. Finally, a simulation methodology was developed that may be used to estimate the operations' impacts on current and future enforcement techniques and technologies. The report offers a number of recommendations to address the challenges of HOV/HOT occupancy enforcement in Virginia: (1) the current practice of sporadic saturation enforcement should be discontinued in exchange for regular, continuous enforcement; (2) the HOV Enforcement Task Force should look critically at current HOV policies to identify and recommend specific changes to reduce the likelihood of citations being dismissed in adjudication; and (3) the methodology developed in this research should be used to evaluate new enforcement techniques and technologies before they are implemented.

This report documents a study conducted to assess and test promising technologies for HOV lane enforcement. After a qualitative assessment of video, automatic vehicle identification, and infrared machine vision technologies, the study was suspended because no preferred infrared technology was available for testing. The study was resumed when a vendor demonstrated promising video technology. The highoccupancy vehicle enforcement and review (HOVER) system was then developed for an operational test on the East R.L. Thornton (I-30) contraflow HOV lane in Dallas, Texas. The results of the operational test indicated that the HOVER system, in its current state, could support a program that mails HOV information to suspected violators (similar to the HERO program). The study's limited budget prevented several improvements that could improve the capabilities of the HOVER system. With several enhancements to the system (e.g., improved license plate recognition and "whitelist" license plate database, etc.), the HOVER system could be used to perform enforcement screening. Significant enhancements to the system (e.g., high-quality video cameras and additional camera views, improved video signal transmission, improved license plate capture and recognition, etc.) could enable its use for HOV ticket-by-mail programs, although enabling legislation does not currently exist in Texas. The author recommends implementation of these enhancements and further testing to determine future system potential.

Acts as single source reference providing readers with an overview of how computer vision can contribute to the different applications in the field of road transportation This book presents a survey of computer vision techniques related to three key broad problems in the roadway transportation domain: safety, efficiency, and law enforcement. The individual chapters present significant applications within those problem domains, each presented in a tutorial manner, describing the motivation for and benefits of the application, and a description of the state of the art. Key features: Surveys the applications of computer vision techniques to road transportation system for the purposes of improving safety and efficiency and to assist law enforcement. Offers a timely discussion as computer vision is reaching a point of being useful in the field of transportation systems. Available as an enhanced eBook with video demonstrations to further explain the concepts discussed in the book, as well as links to publically available software and data sets for testing and algorithm development. The book will benefit the many researchers, engineers and practitioners of computer vision, digital imaging, automotive and civil engineering working in intelligent transportation systems. Given the breadth of topics covered, the text will present the reader with new and yet unconceived possibilities for application within their communities.

The use and creation of combined high-occupancy vehicle/high-occupancy toll (HOV/HOT Lanes) have become more common in urban areas since all types of road users can take advantage of the lane either as a high-occupancy vehicle or opting in to pay a congestion adjusted free. However, to maintain working integrity of the lanes for all users, stepped enforcement to discourage cheating has been needed as more lanes are added. This study evaluated the capability of a novel image sensor device to automate detection of in-vehicle occupants to flag law enforcement of HOV/HOT lane violators. The sensor device synchronously captures three co-registered images, one in the visible spectrum and two others in the infrared bands. The key idea is that the infrared bands can enhance correct occupancy detection through known phenomenological spectral properties of objects and humans residing inside the vehicle. Several experiments were conducted to determine this capability across varied conditions and scenarios to assess detection segmentation algorithms of vehicle passengers and drivers. Although occupancy detection through vehicle glass could be achieved in many cases, improvements must be made to such a detection system to increase robustness and reliability as a law enforcement tool. These improvements were guided by the experimental results, as well as suggested methods for deployment if this or similar technologies were to be deployed in the future.

Conversion of high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes has become a relatively common managed lanes technique now employed in cities across the U.S. HOT lanes are created by developing a pricing system for existing HOV lanes that allow single occupancy vehicles to gain access to HOV lanes by paying a fee. Conversion of existing general purpose lanes to toll lanes or HOT lane operations, however, has not yet won public support as the perception persists that these "free" lanes have already been paid for and such conversions are a take-away. Focus groups were held in Minnesota to understand what policies, conditions, designs and operational characteristics could be considered that may satisfy concerns about general purpose lane adaptations to optional toll lanes or Flexible and Efficient Express (FEE) Lanes. FEE Lanes envision all users, except transit, paying a toll during peak-periods, with the lane reverting back to "free" operation outside of the peaks. Three configurations of FEE lanes were presented and a toll credit system was offered as a means to compensate users who may view the conversion as a take-away. Participants liked what they have already seen work, which is one priced lane on I-394 MnPASS, but were also concerned about user safety and equity. The credit system, which attempts to address user equity, was a source of confusion for many focus group participants. Although some participants seemed to like the idea of getting the credits to use FEE lanes, there were numerous concerns about logistics of credit management and distribution. These findings highlight the need for increased education and marketing about road pricing options which can assist in building support for a variety of pricing options, such as FEE lanes.

Includes information on automated enforcement devices currently being used in the areas of speed enforcement, red-light traffic signal enforcement, and high-occupancy vehicle lane enforcement through summaries and discussions of current technology, experience in using the devices, legal issues, and public acceptance of automated enforcement. Tables and figures.