Highway Robbery: A Breakdown in the Express Lane

May 4, 2022

Cheaters Flout Laws and Cause Congestion While Breaking Down Express Lanes, While Agencies Fail to Address the Underlying Issues

What’s taking the express out of the express lanes, and how it can be fixed

In December 2017, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) converted a nine-mile stretch of Interstate 66 from a high occupancy vehicle (HOV) road into a high-occupancy toll (HOT) road. The conversion allowed commuters to pay for the use of the highway during peak periods. Throughout the process, VDOT informed policy makers they expected the dynamically priced road tolls to reach between $8 to $12  during peak periods. They were mistaken.

Toll cheaters caused conversion chaos

During the first few days of the conversion, chaos and public outcry ensued as tolls spiked  to over $40. Politicians immediately called for the tolls to be capped, changed, or suspended entirely. Within days, there were calls for additional pricing programs to be scrapped. 

Before we can move forward or fix the issue, it’s crucial to know what went wrong.

Was this a case of VDOT being unprepared for the demand? Or were the pricing algorithms designed to keep the road moving developed incorrectly? It was neither of those things. The real answer to the unexpected price spike is simple and uncomfortable to acknowledge. Toll fees spiked drastically as a result of what can only be described as highway robbery.

VDOT either misunderstood or was misinformed about the number of people already violating HOV rules. Upon opening the HOT lanes on December 4th, thousands of drivers who had been regularly cheating the HOV rules were now unknowingly flooding the HOT lanes, causing prices to radically inflate beyond expectations. Honest users were also penalized, in this case by feeling the pinch of inflated tolls.

How bad are violation rates?

Data on HOV cheaters is difficult to find for numerous reasons. Most agencies do not release this information due to the severity of the problem, while others do not measure violations consistently. Varying reports discuss how difficult it is to accurately track offenders. The data paints a bleak picture with CBS Sacramento reporting more than 30% of vehicles on average violating HOV rules on HOV, HOT, and managed lanes (ML) nationwide.

Recognizing that it only takes 3-5% in additional traffic to congest a road, the potential for toll roads to become overwhelmed looms large. 

Express lanes still require integrity

The main purpose of HOV lanes is to create ongoing incentives for users to share rides while reducing the number of vehicles driving on the system. An added reward is allowing users to have a faster and more dependable trip in return for taking cars off the road by pooling. When cheaters overwhelm the system, users suffer, roads are clogged, and the system fails.

HOT violators cost honest commuters time and money

Violators in the HOV and HOT lanes take space in a system designed to reduce the number of cars on the road while generating revenue for the transportation system. When someone, in essence, steals that space, it goes beyond being rude to other commuters; it becomes a crime with multiple impact points.

Some of the ways cheaters negatively impact the integrity of the process along with the bottom line include:

• HOV cheaters increase toll prices for everyone. 

• HOV cheaters create congestion.  

• HOV cheating is a safety issue. 

Neither ambivalence nor enforcement solves the issue of toll cheaters

Most agencies seem ambivalent about HOV/HOT/ML cheat rates. After all, if the majority of agencies do not even measure violation rates, why would cheaters be scared enough to stop? As more agencies look to pricing as a congestion relief strategy, we need to challenge operational leaders to address HOV violations and come up with effective strategies to stop cheaters from destroying the HOV/HOT benefits for all.

Unfortunately, most agencies rely on police enforcement to address HOV violators. But visual enforcement by law enforcement officers is unsafe, ineffective and further degrades the system by increasing congestion.

Police cannot pull over enough vehicles to make enforcement work

On average, a police officer can cite between two to four drivers an hour for HOV violations. According to the Guide to Traffic Management Part 3, between 1,600 to 2,400 cars can travel on a congested lane per hour. That means enforcement operators catch less than 2% of all violators in an enforcement raid involving ten officers. 

Police enforcement is not a deterrent.

While it’s long been believed that enforcement would serve as a deterrent, a study conducted by the Virginia Transportation Research Council found otherwise. The study revealed that not only wasn’t the threat of police enforcement a deterrent, following high enforcement periods violation rates actually increased.

Verify occupancy. Restore fairness.

While technology drastically changes almost every element of our lives, we still manage and enforce our roads the same way we did decades ago. 

Agencies should move past the “catch me if you can” philosophy of HOV enforcement and towards verifying occupancy before any discount or rebate can be applied. To do that, there are two categories of enforcement: automated and manual that must be implemented for maximum efficacy. Only one of these methods works.

Manual verification includes law enforcement officers, pre-declaration smartphone apps, and carpool permitting systems. Unfortunately, none of these reduce violation rates, while all pose safety hazards and perpetuate the problem.  

Automated vehicle occupancy detection (AVOD) methods are the safest and most reliable solution. They also require no interaction between law enforcement or commuters at any time before, during or after a trip.

There are two types of solutions which include camera systems, or post-trip fraud verification like the GoCarma occupancy verification system.

Camera systems have not been proven effective. While accuracy rates are improving, multiple pilots have demonstrated they are not accurate enough, are cost prohibitive, and create privacy issues. Some states have banned these types of technologies.

GoCarma, the only consistently effective and cost-saving option

Once installed, GoCarma automatically verifies the occupancy of a vehicle using non-trackable Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology with no user interaction.

This occupancy count can be used to qualify for HOT/HOV/EL discounts, HOV lane access, and travel behavior rewards or other incentives. This technology has been used by dozens of other apps for more than a decade while tracking more than a billion user trips across public transportation, carpools, car sharing and autonomous vehicles.

Carma technology works to stop HOV cheaters while rewarding honest users

It’s counterproductive to continue setting up systems to manage HOV lanes if they can be easily violated by toll cheaters. To effectively stop HOT/HOV/EL cheats, agencies must understand not only the costs of ignoring the practice of dodging tolls in terms of dollars, but also in terms of safety and public trust.  

GoCarma is a proven and effective way of managing lanes, collecting tolls, keeping law officers safer and managing incentives and reward programs. If you’re serious about stopping cheaters, GoCarma is the app your agency needs.