Patrick DeCorla-Souza, Tolling and Pricing Program
Manager, FHWA
Lee Munnich, Humphrey Institute, University of
Minnesota
Kenneth Buckeye, Minnesota Department of Transportation
John Doan, SRF Consulting
Center for Innovative Finance Support
Federal Highway Administration
Eighteenth Part of a Webinar Series on Overcoming the Challenges of Congestion Pricing.
Presentations by:
Jen
Good afternoon or good morning to those of you to the West. Welcome to today's webinar on Synergies Among Congestion Pricing, Active Transportation and Demand Management (ATDM), and Other Market-Based Strategies. My name is Jennifer Symoun and I will moderate today's webinar. Please be advised that today's seminar is being recorded.
Before I go any further, I do want to let those of you who are calling into the teleconference for the audio know that you need to mute your computer speakers or else you will be hearing your audio over the computer as well.
If during the presentations you think of a question, please type it into the chat are. Please make sure you send your question to "Everyone" and indicate which presenter your question is for. Presenters will be unable to answer your questions during their presentations, but we will use the remaining time after all presentations to answer the questions that have been typed in. If we are unable to get through all of the questions in the time allotted we will get written responses from the presenters and send them out with the follow up information.
The PowerPoint presentations used today are available for download from the file download box in the lower right corner of your screen. I would also like to remind you that this session is being recorded. The recording, presentations, and a transcript will be posted to the Center for Innovative Finance Support web site within the next few weeks and I will send out a notice when they are available.
Transportation agencies across the U.S. have implemented managed lane projects and successfully combined congestion pricing with various ATDM strategies. The positive impacts on congestion management and safety of these combined strategies can exceed those of separate strategies. This webinar will focus on synergies between congestion pricing and Active Demand Management (ADM), Active Traffic Management (ATM), Integrated Corridor Management (ICM), and Dynamic Ridesharing on implemented projects. Presentations will be given by:
We also have Myron Swisher, of Leidos, on the line. Myron will be assisting with asking and answering questions during the Q&A period.
Our first presentation will be given by Angela Jacobs of the Federal Highway Administration. Angela works on the FHWA Congestion Pricing program and will provide a brief introduction on the FHWA congestion pricing and ATDM programs and how the programs are leveraging their synergies to reduce congestion in the U.S.
Angela Jacobs
Thank you Jennifer. Just to give a little background. I know that many of you have participated in some of the webinars that my colleague Jim Hunt has been offering on active transportation and management. We really started talking about some of the synergies or similarities between what we do and pricing and what we did -- what his program does. Their technological advances we witnessed in an evolution of innovative solutions designed to alleviate congestion. For quite some time price management quarters have utilized dynamic tracing as a confectioner Justin -- reduction strategy. One of the key things or areas that you have seen this has been with the EPA and CRD programs which encourage the use of combined strategies with the four teeth which were totaling, transit content technology come and travel demand technology. For more information on the Perkins you can look on the congestion pricing website. We saw from looking at that and how we are integrating with different strategies is a huge benefit that you can get. The ICM and ATDM strategies further optimize efforts. We really felt it would be a great idea to work together and put together a webinar that would focus a little bit more attention on how we view that. The upcoming presenters will focus on the synergies monies come from entry strategies.
Active demand management. The definition was compliments of my colleague Jim Hunt who as a mentioned has been doing a series of webinars on this particular topic. They are Kopelman to active track -- active traffic management active parking management. The definition that FHWA provisos that uses information and technology to dynamically manage demand, which good day include redistributing travel to less congested times a day or routes, or reducing overall vehicle trips by influencing a mode choice.
As you can see active demand management strategies take a lot of different forms. Dynamically priced managed lanes which is based on occupancy and pricing which is what my program works on. Shared use mobility. Dynamic ride sharing. Dynamic routing. Dynamic transit capacity assignments. On demand transit. Tran dynamic fair reduction potential connection production and predictive traveler information. There are a lot of strategies here. A lot of them, my program has supported as well as other FHWA programs as well.
Today as I mentioned, we have been fortunate enough we have been fortunate to get three experts in this area who been willing to give their time to talk about what they are types of projects have actually a fermented these strategies. I first speaker will be rock she had with the US DOT I TS joint program office and he will focus his conversation or presentation on integrated corridor management. You will be followed by Brian Kary from the Minnesota Department of transportation. And he's going to talk about eight -- ATDM and congestion pricing in Minnesota. In our final speaker will be Tyler Patterson revisiting the Washington state permanent transportation and hits presentation will focus on a case study of the state Route 167 hot lanes access project. Back to you Jen.
Jen
Thank you Angela. Our next presentation will be given by Bob Sheehan of the USDOT ITS Joint Program Office. Bob is the ITS Multimodal Research Program manager; leading transit, mobility as a service, and vehicle to infrastructure research. He is going to discuss the opportunities and challenges of pricing in an integrated management context.
Bob Sheehan
Thank you. As Jennifer stated I'm going to review the management program and dive into the fundamentals of managing our system in an integrated manner and trying to tie the pricing into that model our program started with a couple of basic issues and reasons why we pursue the I TS program. All of these were developed and identified years ago. They're still optimum today. Was to have a system that is made up of individuals and independent networks. Freeways, less rail transit arterials. Managed lanes. Private sector, Angeles showed the first side of shared use being the up-and-coming and much more common part of the transportation service. Even as independent networks some of the ability to optimize individual networks are limited but we still have the focus on their own specific network and not recognizing the impact or the objective of any local partner. For example transit running on an arterial system. Or transit running needs to have some party fears any part of the system. So that really represents another challenge which is the minimum cross-network management. The real ability to facilitate route schist. For example the shift mode we have to provide every opportunity to get that traveler to make that decision. And we have a lot of objections for that shift. For example five to get off my freeway and make my way over to the transit station have to negotiate the arterial system to gets there. Once I get there to find parking. But I have to get to the platform. Then I have to wait and have dual time for the transit service. So all these elements add up. By doing -- if you sum up that trip you really then get a true multi-comparative travel time rather than just looking at two different routes or just a general transit time for the freeways facility. Based on that we had a vision that we saw an opportunity to see benefits, significant benefits to the integration and operations of our system and the multimodal transportation corridors. This is an important point. That we make in various presentations or workshops. When we talk about a corridor we're looking at all of the elements within that quarter. All of the providers of service and all of the demand for that system. Rate includes the managed lanes down the pike. Includes parking systems. Parking system on the front end or the end of the trip but in many cases it is really I need to look at parking at the beginning of the trip we need to look at demand shift at them off the route and parking services. But that incorporate the shared use as an integral part of the overall model. We're seeing bike and head being a consider part of the share. Of course plus services are local and express services of from a geographic standpoint it is really important to recognize, we talk about corridor. We're not talking about a single facility. This happens to be Virginia I 66. We're not just looking at a highway. Looking at a quarter. That goes beyond the parallel route. This is why we have 29, Andrew 50 the heads into DC. We are looking at the full travel shed. All of the trips that generate from here into the core downtown DC that is what we consider the corridor. Not just the band. In addition we have overlapping corridors. We have to travel sheds that overlap and these are an opportunity for these folks in this area can shift to the 66 corridor when they can move to the 95 corridor. In DC we have a lot of reverse flow coming out of the 66 and coming out 95 and 91 just to get the Belfour and other recent development for business. Three parts that we focus on is the generally to operate a system and integrated matter. You have the technical challenge. This is one of the challenges that can be easily overcome ticket is really bringing in the system and data together. The technology and the systems together. Whether it is resource sharing or some other means. That allows us the operating system and integrated in a joint matter. It really comes down to a joint response and the joint response posture. But all that is built on institutional framework. This really comes down to all of the managing partners and the agencies coming together and a green to operate their particular systems as part of an overall or operate their facilities as part of an overall system.
To do this we have general operating processes to build. We have to start with information sharing. We have to move to operational improvements to allow for demand shift. We have to implement active demand management approaches. We have to improve the network connect -- connections. I doing so in all of the applications the Angela resented this allows us to promote demand shifts. In many cases we are already accommodating shifts. Other we can accommodate better by reacting to and implemented changes to the system ultimately I think it is a no-brainer that eventually we need to look at the long-term changes to the corridor. We have to understand the demand and capacity of the relationship but in the interim the operating system we're looking at the capacity and the supply and demand balance. In some way to achieve that balance. And that is achieved through demand shift, or modifying the overall traffic flow. So examples for that short term operation for supply and demand we have capacity approaches. Whether we can see adding transit capacity by adjusting headways copy number of vehicles caught the bus bridges for outages. Or you can even look at parking capacity for example in some of our model and simulation efforts we saw parking is a considerable challenge to mode shift. Whether you can develop the additional parking capacity there are opportunities for private partnerships in Dallas were the utilize an on-call parking we negotiate with local parking lots or malls to allow access capacity or overflow to move over to those parking facilities. Those parking lots. That is something you would into all the time. They don't want commuters parking but if and when needed they could have a relationship to do it. The other part on the demand side is where we get into other elements to really suppress or shift the demand and key parts of that are the pricing and incentive. Toll or transit fares or parking fees and some incentives to change. An example, Angela brought up the condition reduction and some work out in LA. This is an example when they provided incentive to take transit. If you use the civil line a number of times you can you -- are in credit to use the HOT lanes. So there really are some opportunities to balance the demand by the fair and will encourage people to stay off of the HOT lanes and also have the opportunity to use those lanes when needed based on our use of transit services. The key of all the things regard us of how or what is being done, the objective is to lament all of these things in the corridor, multi-jurisdictional, and multimodal fashion.
One of the key questions that we ask a -- to be able to do this we have to have all of these decoders working together. So what we ask all of the time when we are doing workshops or presentations is who is here and who is missing. You can even do that on the list. But perhaps we see the managed facilities within road agencies. -- Roadway agencies. But the key is also looking at the travel and focusing on the customer. That is something in the pricing facility. They are travelers and customers. Pricing -- within the context pricing has the ability to influence demand and incentives has the ability to impose demand. We have options that were presented told, affairs can't parking fees. So and integrated approach, travelers with any given a more complete set of information. A true situational awareness. It allows them to make a better decision to pay for the use of a managed Lane or transit service or any other action they have for their trip that they. The lanes could have capabilities of ICM strategies that are options that are already programmed in signed on by regional agencies. Back to the institutional challenges come it is not an easy thing to do because there are challenges to this integration. For example agencies and lamenting lanes have a primary objective to keep the congestion free option. They want to provide reliable service to their customers that they would see the driving experience is more valuable. And ensuring travel time reliability. -- By ensuring travel time reliability it is the key element in providing that service as compared to the uncertain travel times and general-purpose lanes or any other facility.
In addition we know pricing is a powerful tool to influence demand for the decision to alter pricing for a quarter objective not be taken lightly. By an example cost-saving the price can those facility over the federal transit service. Your bus route transit down the mainline, we have an objective in the corridor a person based movement. Perhaps you have major incident on the general-purpose Lane. Then what do we do. The managed lanes will be priced to maintain maximum flow. Assuming there is no most folks know the price facilities and locations have a general cap per mile toll. If this is the case, or the scenario come what do we do in a quarter objective. Does that conflict with the specific objectives of that managed Lane or facility. What if you look at the restrictions of a managed Lane. How does that affect the managed Lane customer. They want reliable service. Out of that affects the transit reliability in the capture writers. Capture writers are those folks who are there every day. They use transit. Now they will get those if you're going to start giving them a service that may not be as reliable as expected, not have to reevaluate the facility of that trip compared to other trips and choice writers who will make a decision. To another mode to provide another opportunity with more information to make a better decision and not cause them to shift to something that may be less advantageous to the corridor. This is a multimodal program. I worked with Angelo for many years. The program is led by folks in the federal transit administration. Federal Highway Administration. If you want any more information you can always find it -- sign up for the newsletter or visit our website. This contains the documentation guidance, presentations cut etc. I appreciate the time. To review this and look forward to the remaining presentations
Jen
Thank you Bob. We'll now move onto the next presentation, given by Brian Kary of the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Brian has worked with the Minnesota Department of Transportation since 1999. His work with MnDOT has included working in Freeway Operations, Traffic Analysis, and Incident Management. In his current position, Brian oversees the daily operations of the Regional Transportation Management Center, which includes the MnPASS system and Smart Lanes corridors. Brian will discuss the use of ATM on managed lane facilities.
Brian Kary
Thank you. I'm going to talk a little bit about our 30 5W quarter. How we are using ATDM and congestion pricing in Minnesota's part of that court or - This is part of our management -- regional transportation management Center. We have about 400 miles of freeway management system including cameras, message signs, adaptive ramp metering. As a talk more about MN PASS. 304 was of limited in 2005 and 30 5W was of lamented in 2009 into phases between [ Indiscernible ]. I will be focusing more on 30 5W today. One of the things above talk about with the travel time reliability for our customers and our customers being transit cut carpoolers motorcycles and MN PASS customers. It is fully dynamic pricing so as you can see in the sign here there will be to roadway segments or pricing segments. This example is from 394. You can either travel to Highway 100 or 94 and there will be two different prices listed there. Price can vary anywhere from $.25 to eight dollars. That price changes every three minutes based on the real-time demand and the HOT lanes. Uses our detection system that we already have in place as part of our RTM traffic management system.
If I could is more focused on 35W. This was RUP a quarter. So much of this work was done as part of our UPA project. With the UPA project we expanded MnPASS 235 to view it is our second Holling quarter. It was primarily an existing HOV that was converted to HOT. We also had a reconstruction project that was arty ongoing and constructing a new HOV Lane which ultimately operated as a HOT Lane. It also had added the smart liens components which would be our intelligent and control signals as you can see in the picture over each Lane. And have a price Dynamex hoteling on the north end of the quarter that got the MnPASS into downtown. And included some transit elements as well such as early phases of bus rapid transit some additional Park and ride stations and also integrating low park-and-ride lots with traveler information tools as well as a low-cost high benefit capacity improving projects along the quarter - To focus Monteith Marlene system and the after traffic management we have are intelligently control system which are located every half-mile over every Lane. Can see the black boxes on the image. You can also see any distance there is obviously the one the foreground but you can see in the distance if you go to the river valley can't decide entries are every half-mile at those Lane control signals. We have a total of 297. That actually 187 on 1025 and have expanded the system onto 94 between the two downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The signs are for but by 5 foot -- oh 4' x 5 -- oh 4' x 5'.
These are our different messages that you will see on a ILCS. As you are approaching an incident scene. Are variable speed of the system is advisory only. It is detecting traffic speeds downstream so it is really a queue warning system and then those people be posted dose recommended speed can be posted up to a mile and a half upstream. So as you are approaching a dusting edit area you might the speed limit those in might say 50 and then 40 and then 30. Our speed limits dose of the lowest will go is 30. The highest will go is a 5 miles an hour under the posted speed. They can be an 5 mile an hour increments. We're using the existing detection that we already have on the quarter. That is been a challenge because of some of the latency of the data. We get data back every 30 seconds per speed data which can be a long time especially when we are trying to react to congestion that is being caused by an incident. So that is one of the things they were looking at to try to improve upon the system. To get faster speed data into the system so that the system can react quicker. Lane control messages we have done some human factor studies and surveys there is some understanding of the ILCS service but that affiliate -- we're tied quantify how people respond to the ILCS messages versus just a regular dynamic message said. And seeing if there is a significant difference of benefit within the added infrastructure ILCS structures. We're also looking at very low speeds. We haven't seen very much in terms of their mobility improvement or safety improvements. We have seen some reduced shockwaves and improvements in speed differential but really are not seeing any measuring differences in terms of the number of crashes that occur along the corridor. So that is why we are kind of looking at the ways to get the system to react better and more quickly. Are priced in the next order Lane is our last 3 miles of the corridor. The final 3 miles we would have had basically for general purpose lanes on the existing quarter. The map on the right you can see the area in yellow is a reconstructed area which would have delivered five lanes for general-purpose products -- plus a 24 -- HOT Lane. It would've stopped about 3 miles Sievert area and blue is not slated for reconstruction until the [ Indiscernible ]. So we did this price and eventually by using the existing footprint. We had a total cost of $70 million to upgrade the shoulder with -- pavement and modify some of the catch basins and also add the ideas infrastructure to that piece. Our project has accelerated a little bit it is actually scheduled for 2017. Suggest [ Indiscernible ] is a quarter gets reconstructed in it will be a permanent full five lanes in each direction. Within that area in blue. The PSL is still a good benefits by the time he gets renewed -- removed to have served eight years of providing some congestion relief and the MnPASS Lane on that quarter. A little more details on the MnPASS Lane on the -- PDSL and it operates Monday through Friday 6 AM to 7 PM. We originally had a just operating during peak hours but found that we had a high violation rate during the midday. So we opened it up during that midday because we didn't want to create a false sense of security of having people stop on that shoulder. We can open it outside those hours for events or whether or incidents. In fact since the initial opening we now have regular hours on the weekend for a large number of special events that happen in downtown Minneapolis.
Some challenges that we have faced is that PDSL definitely require more precision to deploy that overhead CMS. It requires more operators in detail oriented staff. The distance of the incident is much closer. You have to be much Marlene specific and it is much more obvious to the motorist if you are wrong because if the red X over the wrong lane. We're also trying to compare to the, like image and earlier whether DMS could be just as effective if they were just more closely face rather than the more costly perception of the ILCS. With ILCS we had on Tran 20 5A $35,000 your maintenance fee with the vendor. The vendors had on bankruptcy we now have to maintain those internally. And then we have had some high utility cost as well. Is not a cheap system to deploy by any means. Getting in to some of the other demand management components as part of the UPA project and part of the initiative with the four of transit and telecommuting we had a huge transit fees. In fact most of the funds went to transitive prevents along the corridor this is actually off the quarter in downtown Minneapolis. But it serves all of the express bus route that come off of 35 to be -- 35W in the early phases of the BRG quarter on 30 -- Tran 25. This is the marks to project with Mark and second Avenue. They are two one-way pairs that run through Minneapolis and essentially transit ways and each direction. One traveling northbound one traveling southbound. With the transit stops located along the quarter. Historically was only one transit lane and this project why did the corridor from the curb to allow for a second transit lane. The advantage was in the past has one bus stopped at a bus stop every bus behind it had to stop as well. Now provides a way for other buses to continue to move. Not every bus stops every transit stops it depends on the route essentially the Metro transit has tripled the capacity for transit use of this court or. These two quarters at second and Marquette are really the transit hub for downtown Minneapolis. This was a key part of getting that destination in the downtime and emphasis they come up with 30 -- Tran 20 5/4 as part of the project. In addition to that of the other end of the trip we had Park and ride lots and bus fleet expansion on not only Tran 25 but also on a parallel route of Highway 77. That both serve the southern suburbs and 77 and at Highway 62 and 62 comes over to W. So they come back together and 35W brings the transit routes into downtown Minneapolis. It really acts as an entire corridor system between 35 and 77.
Lastly for the transit components we have our innovative transit technologies. The transit agency that runs on 77 and comes out of the South Metro Valley transit authority partnered with the University of Minnesota to come up with the driver assist program where the bus actually assist the driver and driving on the shoulder. We have the bus shoulders are most of this corridor outside of the hot lane. Specifically if the MnPASS isn't that Lane. 177 there is no MnPASS lanes of the buses are operating a bus only shoulders. And this system helps ride the bus down that shoulder. We also have next trip which there is web interface as well as signs that the transit locations that can give information on when the next bus arrival will be. And then there are some ADA boxes as well that can provide an audible indication as when the next bus will arrive as well. On the freeway system we have signs that will state as you see on the far weight copies particular signs that are in the picture on the local streets were we have similar type signs that are on the freeway system. They give a comparative travel time between car and bus and give Park and ride status and whether or not there is parking available at that location. And then there is also some signs they give next bus arrival at the park and ride as well.
As I wrap up, little bit about how MnPASS has performed. A little bit of the whole but also to 35W the majority of people are using MnPASS. Carpooling or writing transit. Transit customers only make up about 32% of the total number of vehicles. When you look at the total number of people moved they only make 12% of the total vehicles and Elaine. So the graph on the left is the vehicles moved in a pie chart on the right is the people moved. You can see when you bring and at transit components, the majority of the users in that HOT Lane are writing transit . 41%. And 4 to 4% are in some form of carpal.
Looking at that a different way in terms of person throughputs. The two bar charts. They sure representation from 35W and 394. The one in the left is 35W at Lake Street . That is a shoulder lane. We have for general purpose lanes and on average those general-purpose lanes are moving about 1800 people per hour during the peak. Whereas our MnPASS is moving 4500 people per hour during that same time period. Well over twice the capacity in that MnPASS Lane as far as person throughputs. 394 is actually a reversible infection so there are two MnPASS lanes. But if your average across the two MnPASS lanes and three general-purpose lanes it is still pretty impressive numbers but in that can general-purpose and about 3000 and the MnPASS Lane.
Finally to talk a little bit about the travel time reliability. In the MnPASS Lane we have MnPASS customer would only have to plan about 40 minutes to make the commute from Lakeville in the southern end of the quarter to go into downtown Minneapolis whereas in the general-purpose lanes they have to factor in 20 minutes to ensure that they get to work on time for the majority of days. That gives my much more productive all travel time. Went at about half the travel time as well. It is really an advantage for the MnPASS users whether the total customers, carpoolers, or the transit users. For transit call awesome improvements there is love. 35 -- 35W bus services 2009 has continued to see improvement and growth. It has seen service increase i.e. 11% and ridership up 55%. Similar numbers on 394. We saw service increase by 6% in ridership up by 24%. A lot of the park and rides approaching capacity. Definitely a lot of good numbers for transit. One of the concerns we have seen busy go out and study other trends recorders and other areas in the Metro is kind of that concern of if you're providing such a great advantage for occupants to be able to use this Lane by paying the toll, is exactly to actually take them out of the buses. I think these numbers actually show the opposite. That even though implemented the MnPASS on 35W the transit riders deftly went out. Not that there is a direct correlation evidence shows that we did no harm to transit and the transit is still getting a huge advantage of people are able to use low -- utilize that.
The future of ATM in Minnesota. MnPASS is expanded. We have openings this fall and then in the summer. We have other quarter is being studied as well. Is in our transportation policy plan of any future expansion still needs to first be considered with MnPASS. Then we have our dynamic shoulder lanes. One is going to get reconstructed and become a permanent MnPASS Lane. So right now we have nothing planned as far as a dynamic shoulder lanes but it is definitely still a tool in the toolbox as we look to other quarters were it might be too costly to expand or a full expansion project is too far in the future and we want some congestion relief sooner. As far as the ATM goes, that is part of that same project that is removing the PDF file -- PDSL on 35W about a 4 mile stretch of the 18 miles work you're actually looking at instead of replacing the ILCS boards that we will just replace them with more frequent DMS that we can healthy get a similar benefit with a less infrastructure as well as less maintenance and operations with `odd that concludes my presentation. I will pass it on to the next person.
Jen
Thank you Brian. We'll now move onto our final presentation, given by Tyler Patterson of the Washington State Department of Transportation. Tyler is the Toll Operations Engineer for Washington State Department of Transportation. In addition to other activities, he is responsible for the maintenance and operations of all 3 (soon to be 4) tolling facilities in Washington State. Tyler will present on full-facility Dynamic Pricing on the existing SR-520 bridge with advanced Traveler Information Systems. Dynamic Ridesharing has also been implemented on the corridor. Results from a recent pilot on Open-Access for Managed Lanes on SR-167 will be shared.
Tyler Patterson
Thank you. This is a study on the 167 HOT lanes. We made some changes to the access I wanted to change there is no share the results with you guys. I'm going to provide you some background. You know a lot of you are familiar with 167 so I will not spend too much time but I will talk a little bit about the project that we did and some of the results and how that relates to ATDM .
A long time ago, back in 2008 we opened the HOT lanes on 167. We chose that as a highly congested routes. It was underutilized as a HOV Lane we wanted to provide the drivers a choice. We were on year seven of RFID for your pilot project. Continue to go back for a short-term duration with the legislature as we have gone back and proven that this is an effective project. They like to give us short -- a short leash on this project. This is been handy in some ways and fostering and some others. But handy and that this is a pilot project in making changes to it is a little bit Azor obviously be told automatically adjust to keep the traffic flowing at 45 million -- 45 miles an hour or faster 90% of the time during peak hour. Is free for buses and carpools and motorcycles. The driver does solo drivers pay the full toll tell any difference on a 10 mile route. This slide is interesting because if you'll notice the top Dick sure, -- the top picture the single white stripes going in both direction this is our predesigned of limitation. This is May 2007. And we switch to this bottom picture down here with the double white stripe and a skip the stripe which you can see a - Now we have switched back to this style. We will talk a little bit more about that. We will meet our goals and free-flowing traffic and reducing traffic. Our ability to finance improvements. And some equity issues as well demonstrated those were okay. We're hearing from our customers and this is and is why we are looking at doing changes to the access. Mimi dishonoring here. To a drivers are violating the double white lines without apparent penalty. This creates a real safety hazard. Every year I do a survey of our customers and every year the leading complaint is that people are violating the double white line. This is really frustrating for people. We have I believe 55 of these illegal to cross double white line lines but they do not seem to be very effective. So we commissioned the University of Washington to do a study on what is going on and why are people crossing the double white line. Why aren't they obeying the rule. Basically what it turns out to be is that, people violates the double white lines when they see tail lights ahead of them. So when they see value, that is when they decide to make their decision. The decision that they need to manage their trippy little bit more carefully and use the hotly -- HOT Lane. Once one person ago than the multiple sheep follow. One person would go and then two or three would make their move. That was the typical way people were violating. And additionally, -- in addition to the complaints prepaying customary heard a lot of complaints from drivers, HOV it drivers that they were frustrated they cannot use the facility like they were -- they used to be able to. And are transit partners were also struggling with weaving in and out of the lanes and not having to weave our earlier or delay their entry depending on whether those exit and entrance they were using. It was frustrating for multiple people.
Fully applied for some money and we got about half $1 million to get this project done. We restring restraint in signed changes. There was a big public information and outreach let -- effort. One of the most exciting parts has been the evaluation and trying to figure out how does this new change affect people and what do they do. Our goals were to improve the access for HOT Lane drivers to violate the effects on revenue and understand our customer responses and determine if this really was a good option.
As amended before the striping changed from the double white stripe and the skip straight to the single solid white stripe over here. Allowing people to get in and merge whenever they wanted to. Not going to spend too much time here. We took down some signs. We had to remove some of the access science and to change some things. But I don't want to spend too much time. What I really want to talk about is what has happened. This is a little graph of our monthly trips. Mostly Seahawks colors and here. 2% listed above is the percentage change from the previous year. So blue is funny 13 and greenest 2014. That the one month of 2015 that we have is in purple. This redline indicates when we did our project here. It was actually the second and third week in August. So we see our monthly trips had been about 30% this -5% is a little bit of a red herring and that's we had a huge power outage and lost a number of working time periods we were able to collect tolls because of this outage. That is a little bit of a red herring but this 5% growth and then interestingly come January is down. This is not following are typical pattern. So we can talk a little bit about that as we move forward. What is interesting as well as at the trips have gone up a little bit. The monthly revenue has really gone up quite a bit. From 44% percent 66% we saw a small increase in volume and a huge increase in price work trying to figure out why, what is going on. So looking at this and really are average toll. This is from inception to our new project. We are of maybe $1.20 and then suddenly it really skyrocketed appear. Trying to get it. What is going on the hours we're seeing. What is different. This is a different graph. This is our limited access. This is in March 2014. Tuesday through Thursday. This is our northbound segments three capacity. Northbound 3 is our capacity limiting segments. Meaning when that one is full, that pretty much dictates -- 11 is going to thought of is going to be northbound 3 that is our most heavily used segments. These are divided into 15 minutes time periods. Was a theoretical capacity of 375 vehicles or so per hour. -- Or 15 minute period. The blue is the unused capacity. The purple is the HOV volume and the green is the as a Lee or our so capacity. This 15% means that we sold 50% of our available capacity to sell as this increases the bumps along here, you can see that we are selling -- this graph is measuring how much of our available capacity are we selling. And without regard or trying to get account for our HOV I was. Pay attention as we flip to the next five. It is 630. We have about 260 vehicles. And that 50 minute period. Into that as we move forward, a goes to about 300. A little over 300 and that 6:30 period really what we are doing is we flip back and the little bit more clearly. We're basically squishing and we are in a tight squeeze. We're basically limiting our supply so our prices having to go up and respond accordingly. Are used to never get even close to hitting our cap, if hits about a dozen times now in the last five or six months. We are also moving a lot more of these HOV trips and a lot of them are shorter trips. That we are seeing as well. Those are soul trips and our HOV trips better than the longer trips that we were favoring before. We sent out a survey to our customers to kind of try to learn what they were thinking. We had about a 10% response rate. 82% said it was more convenient. 80% said it was easier to use. 77% it was more useful. 67% preferred to the new axis which is always a little lower than we would have liked and 42% agreed to a safer. Most people do not have a comment if it was safer are not. Fortunately we are continue to learn more about this. We have hired someone to help us to this. We're looking at revenue collections, toll evasion cost safety, liability and speeded the express lanes and the general purpose lanes. Looking at customer attitudes and the transit operators and how that is impacting things. Just a kind of some of our initial results, we have seen increases in volume in the HOT Lane's insect does except in January. I'm not sure what is going on in January but it is something we're looking at closely . It is looking like we might be reverting to more of our previous usage to more of a similar model to what we were using in the March 2014 curve that I was showing you. I think we are reverting back to that a little bit. We will see where we end up. Stay tuned and spent. -- Stay tuned on that. Was revenue is still remains higher but I'm wondering if that is going to come down as well is the traffic reverts to more of a previous version. We will have to see. And then the customer satisfaction increased customer satisfaction considerably. We have also increased complaints about the price I've seen the price went up so people were concerned about that. Like to stress about the performance. They were complaining about the price. Those were two different things. And then to decrease complained about by leaders. So no longer people violating so less of violation complaints. Safety we hadn't really seen any dramatic change. But as with any safety analysis it will take a couple of years before you really have a good sense of what is going on. Or haven't been any wild safety swings. And with that justice some next steps. University of Washington study will be complete the summer. We will continue monitoring and adjusting the pricing algorithm. That is one thing I did not mention. Are pricing algorithm was climbing up and staying longer than we would have liked. It was a coming down as fast as he wanted to make the adjustments there. In March for so make another one. Public come down a little bit faster. We will make -- we will say is staying to live for the traffic levels work we are also going to be extending the system software. The southbound section there are major bottleneck on 18. That concludes my presentation. I will take -- give it back to you Jennifer.
Question and Answer Period
Thank you Tyler. We will now use the remaining time for questions and answers. I'm going to start with the questions that have been typed into the text box. I encourage you to continue typing in questions will get as many questions as we can. Tyler I'm going to start with you since we just finished your presentation and while it is fresh in everyone's mind.
The first question is cut with continuous access those access design household collected and enforced on SR 167 . Spec they are enforced at the same way we are for some notary have beacons set up. And digital enforcement. When a vehicle dies underneath a beacon the begin either illuminates or doesn't eliminate. Indicating to the officer whether they are paying or not and that alerts the officer to pay attention to that vehicle and do a visual it is not the best. I would say that it could be a lot better but we do roping patrols. We do a series of emphasis patrols as well as have been really effective. We will go and have three or four officers out there one morning and really have a pretty and factual presence and back off for the next few days and but one more officer out there in the morning. Really it is just trying to be as unpredictable as possible for the driver so that they do not feel comfortable and there. I noticed that one of the questions was on what we see as the violation rate and how that how that might be changing. We think we're seeing higher violators but it is been in the winter and it is really difficult to assess that and get a consolidated HOV counselor tried to get a better count of our HOV versus violating nonpaying folks. I think we'll have a lot better information for that money gets later into May.
And then for a follow-up what is the proportion of dilators and how you just it was dilators from HOV users as HOV users do not have to have the transponder.
On 167 they do not have to have the transponder that is have a disk does declare themselves as a HOV. It is a visual enforcement. We estimate that to be about 5%. As I just mentioned I think that is about does a little bit higher. It is very difficult to know.
All right. Thank you. What to detectors are you using to recognize solo drivers that jump in and out of the hotly.
We have a series of conductive loops that are in the pavement fossae whole quarter. Every quarter to half of a mile that we use to characterize the pricing of your greasy say months to know those we look at the science of each of those. It looked to see if one is your approaching a toll point if I met a toll point and it'll play medially following the downstream detectors and trying to make sure that people aren't -- weaving around the toll zone. That really doesn't appear to be happening. We haven't had any does it say we've actually had one complaint about that but other than that we haven't have any complaints about people doing that because the general purpose lanes act as a virtual while those while. It is hard to we bow to Bakhtin effectively. To get around the toll point. If you are sailing along at 45 miles an hour and the other lanes are at 20. It is just not something people do.
Another question you have a deep been impacted by the to continue his act on SR 167 and the HOT lanes. I mentioned that a little bit. I think it is too early to tell. You really need a lot more data. We haven't seen any dramatic increases when we started the HOT lanes we saw a small in decrease in accidents. We really haven't seen the meter shaft and any appreciable way. We have had any Rex if that's what you're after that or anything going on in ordinary since we made this change in access. Still do the hug the yellow line. Scoot all the way over our left side. That is about it. Back all right. And be seen speed increase or decrease in or a conversion to continuous access. Spread at that is a great question. I did not cover that about. Speeds have decreased lately in the HOT and decreased slightly in a general purpose lanes. So we are moving more traffic.
All right. Thank you. I'm going to turn over to A was on the phone and I believe [ Indiscernible ] has a few questions that maybe avenges to everybody.
Sure.
Hello Tyler. Since I had the opportunity to preview your presentation time wanted to put an accent on something that you said.'s Jennifer if you can go back to slide 12 which is the graphs as you mentioned, Tyler, the total traffic in the corridor number of vehicles have changed a little bit but not much after August 2014 when he made this operational change. Looking at this graphic this is the before graphic. I was looking between 6 AM and 7 AM basically and as he mentioned come there is probably an average of about 260 HOV using the corridor . And you already with the toll vehicle to her already bumping up against your theoretical maximum of 375 vehicles per quarter hour. That -- to the next slide Jennifer. So here you are approaching 300 HOV. Probably actually reduced the number of told vehicles but your revenue spiked because your average toll rate spiked. What I wanted to point out was in the spirit of this particular webinar is a the dynamic nature of what occurred. The algorithm evidently read all of those factors and changed the toll rates not only a little bits, but a considerable amount of change behavior CHO leave time I would presume transit are getting better utilization to the tune of about 13 to 15% granted this isn't, you only have four or five months of data. But this certainly is a trend that is visible here and my point was, the significance of this is in a dynamic fashion, your system or algorithm was able to actually support agency goals and objectives of increasing person throughputs supporting transit and given priority to transit and HOV. I thought that was a significant observation, early observation and really a great one to experience for the industry. I'm curious if, I know that I405 the North the segment that will open next fall will still be the six, five or six distinct access points -- you see any significance of this to your region going forward?
Those are two really good point. One, before a five will take as it comes. These are still early observations and we still want to make sure we understand everything before you make any changes there. But you are right that will be limited access. The other plan, I think it is really interesting is improving by increasing our HOV volume in the lane, we have driven the price up and both increased revenue and increase throughput -- people throughputs. Which I think is sort of an interesting -- by having more nonpaying customers in there. We are increasing our revenue. Which is just strange to get your mind around that.
Thank you I appreciate that. Jennifer. Back to.
Thank you Maron. Let's continue to some other questions. There was a question for both Brian and Tyler. What challenges would you see if you were to try to price manager Lane for a quarter objective as opposed to a facility objective three major innocent -- incident the general-purpose Lane. Ryan let's start with you pursed
Wrong button. Do in Minnesota is try to impress as long as possible. Is to let the algorithm. What incident in higher demand for the past lanes of the price start to rise up to the eight dollar mark and is the a lot of willingness to pay I drop off after five or six dollars until he surges a fewer and fewer culture through do the delivered. Use a general rule of evidence have the capacity of the general-purpose locked for an extended period of time. We will open up the transit traffic if need be for a period until the role can clear the incident is much as possible to get more lanes open of is pretty few and far between the head of how we have operated in. Trying to get the overall throughput improved during those incident scenes in granted it does -- take advantage that are MnPASS customers would have but just kind of looking at the whole facility to try to partially each one of the general-purpose happy as a because otherwise we do end up with a lot of complaints of the MnPASS may not being open to traffic during those types of events. So we're kind of a little bit aware of that and try to come up with a happy medium. That is a pretty seldom events where we would open up the MnPASS Lane. We try to keep it told for as long as possible during those major incidents.
This is Tyler, you pretty much echo what Brian Justice said. We try to keep the price lanes going for as long as possible. And when there is an incident, the general-purpose lanes are blocked, we flip that up to open all and get everyone around and moving safely. So it is a balance of providing the travel time advantage for the transit in the HOV and your paying customers and then everyone else making sure that they can get where they are going to. -- Too.
Thank you. Want to go back up to the top. There is a question for Brian. How you determine the locations [ Indiscernible ]. Roughly every half-mile was kind of our rule of thumb that we started with but then but then all of our lane control signals are done in conjunction with regular guide signs in the pictures really the guide sign placements and where the design criteria are for those signs need to be in relation to an exit ramp or interchange, that would really kind of drive the final decision as to where the structures would be. So even though half-mile was really kind of the goal caught in some areas may be closer to around a third of a mile and in a couple of areas we have them is far as three quarters of a mile. Especially if there are a lot of overpasses who have centered with the tight lines to be able to see any link control signal so we just wouldn't put them in and some of those spots. That would kind of at a little bit of a gap to the system. But that was generally how we came up with the locations for those different structures. And then the signals -- lane control signals which is what is displaying those variable speeds.
All right. Thank you. Bob a question for you. A lot of your presentation is on [ Indiscernible ]. But how does that play into greater [ Indiscernible ].
Can you hear me?
Yes. Great question. I'm glad it is broader because it is something we are looking at now. You're right a lot of our into includes moving up goods, people and goods and services. We tend to forget the goods and services movement. So we just recently completed or are completing a white paper covering a series -- covering the relationship between ICM and a number of different things such as a free expanded integration with traffic incident management transit. Recent mobility services like shared use transports. And other pricing was one where was included as well. One of the key issues was ICM freight. I saw the question from Anna -- she is on her and leading the team developing the general paper and the first perm or which ICM was looking for those opportunities to leverage both such as what the traffic management Center or the Carter management folks are doing and how that impacts goods and services movement and vice versa. I think in the beginning Angela mentioned transit connection protection but similar examples have been discussed for freight service. So we are exploring that to really recognize the impact on timed delivery fuel usage and reducing debt ads or bring in work from the freight program and information travel system. It was based on some of the pre-evac -- presort across town -- crosstown improvement was looking at freight improvement across Kansas City dealing with debt and overall freight service where you said to the west side of this of this area. This should be developed or completed soon and we'll try to get out to folks and hopefully this will identify some potential research or opportunities to consider
Thank you. Another question for you Bob can you speak too expensive on ICM quarters in dealing with fine quarter and information overload.
A good question. That's maybe -- you looking at it now and it is something that folks and the other participants want to talk about pick it was a real issue redeployment of active traffic management and systems. You are presenting and putting out a number of different designs versus lane control signs which were also putting up the supplementary signs to the right or left of those gantries. I know in Virginia is looking -- it is installing their systems now and can contain a lot of different new signs that are overlaid over the static signs of the need to over -- modify the overall traffic device plan. The same thing with what we are seeing in San Diego that is putting out routes emerging science. Their modifying their signs to add the direction and route the versioning guidance signs. So in that case it is not as much as an ATM side as Brian and Tyler could talk to a little bit more about the challenges of doing that. A multimodal transit -- the multimodal is still a challenge of adding those signs. I need more peers and participants to talk with how they overcame death but it is a challenge since you have to modify the place in a certain time to incorporate safe transit lines and then you are dealing with the size and location of parking availability to be able to see it.
Thank you. A question for Brian. Wiser so much latency of the speed detection is it a process issue or a technology issue?
Before I touch and I wanted to touch on Bob's question within the sign quarter. It was a big issue on picketed in urban quarter very close to interchanges spacing. Lot of guide signs already out there in place. Was kind of some of the challenges and lane control signals were put in places where the guide signs already were. So then we try to add some of those transitive availability signs onto the same corridor it was a challenge to try to find a proper spacing and find locations for those assigns. Most of them are kind of on the southern end or the far outer reaches of the quarter were there was more availability. But that is been a concern as it has been passed over how do you transfer that to another quarter. Like 394. Which is much more urban and have much fewer space available for those types of signs. That is definitely going to be a challenge to get more transit signs out there.
On the latency of the speed detection a little of both. Process as well as technology. Hour speed sensors are a mixture of loop detectors and electronics. Our system was basically set up to query those devices every 30 seconds and bring them back are averages so it was basically built off of the loops. Said& They don't provide as good of speed data is the way electronics do and the way Tronics we not probably using to the full potential because we are bringing the data back in those 32nd spent.'s were looking at a couple of different things. Probably looking at either more way Tronics or some Doppler radar to get us better speed data and then querying data more efficiently so it is either six seconds instead of 30 seconds coming back in more real-time to help with both the latency as well as the accuracy of that speed which will help the variable speed system respond more quickly.
Thank you. Angela a question for you. What is FHWA perfected on the pricing of managed Lane. Of a price for maximum traffic folder proximally 1600 vehicles per hour per lane or any to be priced to maximize revenue generation to help pay for construction cost at such lanes with higher volume.
Addressed in question. I guess FHWA perspective when it comes to our programs can't we kind of leave that to the state and what their objectives are. Our goal is to manage the use of the facility. Let's say we're talking about come it depends on the type of program we are looking at. If it's with a facility that is HOV to HOT conversions and the answer will be different than if for instance with SR 520 they were looking at tolling all of the lanes in the purpose was to generate revenue for -- to pay for the new those or help pay for the new bridge. I be the one of the big benefits was come it would also alleviate congestion. So it kind of depends what the objective is of the project. As opposed to every project has one certain way to look at it. Also when you ask about the traffic flow that we are very interested in traffic flow we don't necessarily put a number on it but sometimes as you well know trying to manage the traffic, might run a counterintuitive to try to maximize your revenue. -- Revenue. Really are supporting the goals of state or local transportation agency that is looking at managing the use of their facility the most effectively and for each project that might look different.
Thank you Angela. Brian a question for you. Is the [ Indiscernible ] inside shoulder outside will it require changing [ Indiscernible ].
The. -- The PDSL is on the inside. We do offer a couple of different reasons. One so that we didn't have to worry about going to interchanges. The second one is on a very norther end of the court or the 35W spun off into two or three. The two leaves go to the right with it is the continuation of 35W and the three lanes to the left going to downtown and also sort of West 94. We wanted the PDSL to line up with the three lanes going into downtown because that is where most of our MnPASS customers would be destined. Especially the transit customers. It serves a couple of different purposes. As we have looked at some other future once we have come up with some concepts of how we would run a dynamic shoulder through an interchange but at this point nothing is plans. So they're just kind of concepts at this point and time. As far as the legislation goes no legislations were actually running on the shoulder however there was legislation needed for having tolls on 35W in MnPASS it is part of that legislation or is language that says that when the PDSL is open to traffic it must be told they can ever operate as a general-purpose lane because there is concern that the city of Minneapolis were wanted to promote more transit use it would open up as a general-purpose lane and off-peak periods or something. As I stated in my presentation, the PDSL is open from 6 AM to 7 PM and it is told throughout as well as those whereas the rest of the plane is not that we.
Thank you. Off-line another question [Indiscernible - Speaker is muffled]
The court or is it metered. We have over 400 ramp meters in the metro area. All of the 35W is it metered. The meters are running off of the detection. They will look does work up to 3 miles downstream and adjust the metering rates every 30 seconds based on the real-time detection. And it also works at the demand volumes through the on ramp as well ask what kind of tries to balance with the name line can handle versus what the demand are so we don't end up with excessive cues and wait times. Other than that they're not incorporated or coordinated within the verbal speed limit system and the ATM system. They are kind of an independent system and the meters onto directly coordinated with each other. They have some indirect coordination. But there is not a direct coordination that if one ramp is particularly heavy high tries to make up for that on other ramps to try to hold back more traffic. Kind of happened in an indirect way just way the algorithm is established but is not like a direct correlation.
Thank you Angela another question for you if congestion pricing lanes are added not in that conversions what performance requirements this FHWA acquire?
Based on section 1012 of icy evening program was first created, were performance measures that were determined as a part of every one of the big things that was typically we have to do a report to Congress every two years but the things that we are required to look at and measure performance are driver behavior copy traffic volumes transit ridership air quality, billability of funding for transportation programs that may be generated from the tolls and then the financial effects of low income drivers.
Thank you.
A question for Brian. What if the -- why did the vendor go bankrupt.
That is a long story but basically it was a local vendor that actually got acquired by a vendor out of Spain. Was really that Spanish [ Indiscernible ] it went bankrupt sample the local company over. The local company kind of three bought the company and is back in service. But the science that we have are actually from that technology that comes from the original Spanish.
All right. I think the question is for Bob. The data collected from the systems in-house or is it a government agency acquired party?
That all depends on the agreement that we have in place for ICM deployments are deployment sites to make the data available. For the public the or what our objective was, was to have third-party providers utilize a full data set. So our intent was to have a data set beyond the freeways. Freeways arterial transit and any other applicable that would not allow any third party to add value to that in -- to the travelers. So really depends what an organization, what value they see. You saw challenges and the agency trying to shatter data in the business model associate with epic from a program, the evaluator system and we expect to bring that data into in-house will have that available for others to use. We expect that to be open.
All right. Thank you. I think we may have made it through all of the questions at this point. I don't see anything else typed in at this point. We have a few requests.
At this time elect to inform everyone to in order to ask a question over the phone please press *1 on the keypad. There are no questions over the phone at this time.
Thank you. I think we will probably go ahead and for the day. I do not see any more questions typed in. I do want to thank all four of our presenters. For your time today. Thank you also everyone in attendance and for those of you who asked questions. The presentations and recording and transitively post in the next few expecting the way we sent out once they are available. You can also if you need to delegate presentation from the corner of the screen if you have not done so already. So with that we look at go ahead and for today. Thank you everyone and enjoy the rest of your day.
