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Car Sharing Lanes

 

High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes (HOV) 

lanes are already in use near Leeds in 

the UK, and in other countries including 

Australia and the United States.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 20th March 2006, the Transport Secretary Alistair Darling announced the first ever UK motorway car share lane.

Drivers using the M606 and M62 between Bradford and Leeds, in West Yorkshire, will benefit from the £2.5 million initiative, which was introduced in Spring 2008. 

The one-mile lane aims to cut the average peak-time journey by eight minutes.

In general the Government favours providing extra capacity for car pool lanes, but in some case it may be possible to use one of the existing lanes. These could be created by using the hard-shoulder as a running lane or by widening the road to create an additional lane. 

Carplus supports the introduction of car share lanes but favours the use of existing space to make the most of the existing road network as evidence shows that wider motorways can attract more traffic. 

 

Case study - Leeds

Leeds City Council was the first authority to set up a car share or HOV lane in the UK. Its aim was to provide the majority of peak period Leeds-bound people, whether travelling by bus or through car sharing, with priority. Traffic flow reduction was not a target, although, if car sharing became more popular, traffic flows might be expected to reduce.

On Monday 11th May 1998 the Stanningley Road (HOV) lane became the first such scheme on an urban road in Europe. 

The journey times of those travelling in shared cars decreased by 3.5 minutes and those travelling in the non HOV lane also saw a decrease of 1.5 minutes. The buses also reported significant reductions in journey times. After these encouraging results in just eighteen months, Leeds City Council sealed the experimental traffic regulation order making the HOV lane permanent.

For more information on the Leeds HOV lane, please see the link below.  This document is currently being revised by Leeds City Council. Some figures were released to University College London for the  DfT document 'Smarter Choices - Changing the way we travel - Final Report (see Chapter 9)'. This report reviews various initiatives widely described as 'soft' transport policy measures and can be found in full on the DfT website in the 'Sustainable Travel' section.

 

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