"High-occupancy toll lanes quickly are becoming the new fast lane in America. Transportation agencies nationwide, responsible for addressing rapidly growing congestion with rapidly shrinking budgets, are discovering these HOT lanes are cost-effective tools for moving traffic while giving motorists options."
and it is impressive how much technology is going into real-time tolling
“Through numerous demand management techniques — such as changing eligibility requirements, pricing and access control — managed lanes regulate traffic to squeeze more capacity from existing, high-traffic corridors.
Fees vary throughout the day to ease traffic if it begins to get heavy or to encourage customers if use is light. Using congestion pricing, the operator can maintain a high level of traffic flow, even when regular lanes are congested.”
and exemption and enforcement technology as in Atlanta via Gwinett Daily Post
“Each morning, a list of the vehicles who have indicated on their Peach Pass account that they are exempt from the toll -- by having at least three people in the car -- will be downloaded to the officers' laptops, and it will be updated throughout the day.
When an automatic license plate reader picks up one of the vehicles, a ding will alarm, and the officer can look and see if there are at least three people in the car, Wilkins said. If not, they can pull over the drivers and give a $75 ticket,,,
Wilkins said the system allows for people to set their status for an indefinite period of time or to just switch for one day, when maybe a third carpooler won't be along for the ride. The system can also be set to default for one mode on weekdays and another on weekends, if someone plans to carpool during the week but drive alone on weekends or drive alone during the week and have the family in tow on weekends.”
The video below describes a mobile app to set their status. It also shows some of the reactions of local citizens to the tolls
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