HOT Lanes in Houston-—Six Years of Experience 1 HOT Lanes in Houston— Six Years of Experience

High occupancy/toll (HOT) lanes allow travelers to pay a toll to enter a high occu-pancy vehicle (HOV) lane when they do not meet the minimum occupancy restric-tions of the lane. In cases where HOV lanes are not utilized to their full capacity, this provides an effective, and controlled, use of that spare capacity along with a revenue source to offset expenses. Although this is a promising concept, and many cities around the United States are examining the potential development of a HOT lane, only four HOT lanes currently exist. This research documents the findings of six years of experi-ence with two HOT lanes in Houston, Texas. This includes an examination of the daily number of paying customers on the HOT lanes, benefits of the HOT lanes, socioeco-nomic and commute characteristics of HOT lane users, and their mode of choice when electing not to use the HOT lane