A high-occupancy vehicle lane is a restricted traffic lane reserved for the exclusive use of vehicles with a driver and at least one passenger, including carpools, vanpools, and transit buses. These restrictions may be only imposed during peak travel times or may apply at all times. There are different types of lanes: temporary or permanent lanes with concrete barriers, two-directional or reversible lanes, and exclusive, concurrent, or contraflow lanes working in peak periods.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County is a major public transportation agency based in Houston, Texas, United States. It operates bus, light rail, bus rapid transit, HOV and HOT lanes, and paratransit service in the city as well as most of Harris County. It also operates bus service to two cities in Fort Bend County, and to Conroe in Montgomery County. The Metro headquarters are in the Lee P. Brown Administration Building in Downtown Houston. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 60,121,300, or about 225,600 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2023.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), branded as Metro, is the county agency that plans, operates, and coordinates funding for most of the public transportation system in Los Angeles County, California, the most populated county in the United States.
A rush hour or peak hour is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice every weekday: once in the morning and once in the afternoon or evening, the times during which most people commute. The term is often used for a period of peak congestion that may last for more than one hour.
Interstate 405 (I-405) is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway serving the Seattle region of Washington, United States. It bypasses Seattle east of Lake Washington, traveling through the Eastside area of King and Snohomish counties, providing an alternate route to I-5. The 30-mile (48 km) freeway serves the cities of Renton, Bellevue, Kirkland, and Bothell. I-405 terminates at I-5 in Tukwila and Lynnwood, and also intersects several major highways, including SR 167, I-90, SR 520, and SR 522.
Slugging, also known as casual carpooling, is the practice of forming ad hoc, informal carpools for purposes of commuting, essentially a variation of ride-share commuting and hitchhiking. A driver picks up these non-paying passengers at key locations, as having these additional passengers means that the driver can qualify to use an HOV lane or enjoy toll reduction. While the practice is most common and most publicized in the congested Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, slugging also occurs in San Francisco, Houston, and other cities.
A bus lane or bus-only lane is a lane restricted to buses, often on certain days and times, and generally used to speed up public transport that would be otherwise held up by traffic congestion. The related term busway describes a roadway completely dedicated for use by buses, whilst bus gate describes a short bus lane often used as a short cut for public transport. Bus lanes are a key component of a high-quality bus rapid transit (BRT) network, improving bus travel speeds and reliability by reducing delay caused by other traffic.
The Harbor Transitway is a 10.3-mile (16.6 km) shared-use express bus corridor and high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes running in the median of Interstate 110 between Downtown Los Angeles and the Harbor Gateway Transit Center in Gardena, California. Buses also make intermediate stops at 37th Street/USC, Slauson, Manchester, Harbor Freeway, and Rosecrans stations. The facility opened for two-person carpools on June 26, 1996, for buses on August 1, 1996 and was converted to HOT lanes as part of the Metro ExpressLanes project on November 10, 2012.
The El Monte Busway is a 12-mile (19 km) shared-use express bus corridor (busway) and high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes running along Interstate 10 between Union Station in Downtown Los Angeles and Interstate 605 or El Monte Station in El Monte, California. Buses also make intermediate stops at Cal State LA station and Los Angeles General Medical Center station. The busway opened in January 1973 to buses only, three-person carpools were allowed to enter in 1976, and the facility was converted to HOT lanes as part of the Metro ExpressLanes project on February 22, 2013.
A Texas T, also called a T-ramp, is a T-shaped highway ramp that combines entrance and exit ramps into a single structure that allows entrance and exit to the left (inside) lanes of an expressway. It is intended to avoid traffic congestion caused by large numbers of high-occupancy vehicles crossing several lanes near exits.
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is a governmental agency and its purpose is to "provide safe, effective, and efficient movement of people and goods" throughout the state. Though the public face of the agency is generally associated with maintenance of the state's immense highway system, the agency is also responsible for aviation in the state and overseeing public transportation systems.
Lake Ray Hubbard Transit Center is a mass transit station in southeastern Garland, Texas. The station is part of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system and is located near the intersection of Belt Line Road and Interstate 30.
The Indianapolis Public Transportation Corporation, branded as IndyGo, is a public transit agency and municipal corporation of the City of Indianapolis in the U.S. state of Indiana. It operates fixed-route buses, bus rapid transit, microtransit, and paratransit services.
The J Line is a 38-mile (61.2 km) bus rapid transit line that runs between El Monte, Downtown Los Angeles and the Harbor Gateway, with some trips continuing to San Pedro. It is one of the two lines in the Metro Busway system operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro).
The South Busway is a two-lane bus rapid transit highway serving southern portions of the city of Pittsburgh. The busway runs for 4.3 miles (6.9 km) from the Mt. Washington Transit Tunnel across the Monongahela River from Downtown Pittsburgh to the Overbrook neighborhood of the city, bypassing the crowded Pennsylvania Route 51. It is owned and maintained by Pittsburgh Regional Transit, the public transit provider for Allegheny County and the Pittsburgh region.
Metro Busway is a system of bus rapid transit (BRT) routes that operate primarily along exclusive or semi-exclusive roadways known locally as a busway or transitway. There are currently two lines serving 29 stations in the system, the G Line in the San Fernando Valley, and the J Line between El Monte, Downtown Los Angeles and Gardena, with some trips continuing to San Pedro. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) operates the system.
Bus rapid transit creep is a phenomenon where bus systems that fail to meet the requirements for being considered "true bus rapid transit" are designated as bus rapid transit regardless. These systems are often marketed as a fully realized bus rapid transit system, but end up being described as more of an improvement to regular bus service by proponents of the "BRT creep" term. The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy published several guidelines in an attempt to define what constitutes the term "true BRT", known as the BRT Standard, in an attempt to avert this phenomenon.
A managed lane is a type of highway lane that is operated with a management scheme, such as lane use restrictions or variable tolling, to optimize traffic flow, vehicle throughput, or both. Definitions and goals vary among transport agencies, but managed lanes are generally implemented to achieve an improved operational condition on a highway, such as improving traffic speed and throughput, reducing air pollution, and improving safety. Types of managed lanes include high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, high-occupancy toll lanes, express toll lanes, reversible lanes, and bus lanes. Most managed lane facilities are located in the United States and Canada, although HOV and bus lanes can be found in many other countries; outside of the US and Canada, many countries use active traffic management that manage all lanes of a highway.
The Metrobus network provides bus service throughout Miami-Dade County 365 days a year, operated by Miami-Dade Transit. It consists of about 93 routes and 893 buses, which connect most points in the county and part of southern Broward County as well. As of 2022, the system has 41,854,200 rides per year, or about 175,600 per day in the third quarter of 2023.
