Driver Behaviour on a High-Occupancy Vehicle Lane

A section of the M1 between junctions 7 and 10 has been identified as a suitable site to pilot a HOV lane scheme. The design of the scheme must maintain safety standards and also enable naïve drivers to use the scheme correctly and with confidence. TRL's Driving Simulator was used to model and evaluate the proposed design of the scheme.

48 participants were recruited for the study and were allocated to one of four groups according to the two experimental factors of age (17-44 vs. 45 and over) and vehicle occupancy (single occupancy vs. high occupancy). All drivers were put under pressure by being informed that they were running late for an important meeting and were asked to drive through the proposed HOV lane scheme within the simulated environment. The simulator route comprised seven sections that enabled study of the clarity of signs, HOV lane use and violations, and strategies employed when exiting the motorway from the offside HOV lane.

This trial has shown that the majority of participants, all of whom had never encountered car-share lanes on motorways previously, were able to use the scheme correctly and took advantage of the benefits it provided. There was a low level of violation of the HOV lane by single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) but this was under severe provocation caused by uncooperative traffic conditions and in a situation where the simulated enforcement measures didn't have any real consequences. It would appear that the level of contravention of the HOV lane by SOVs wasn't at a level that would cause significant concern.

For more information on this project, please contact Nick Reed on +44 (0)1344 770046 or nreed@trl.co.uk.