Transport Futures held a sold-out HOT Lanes Forum just seven weeks after the Ontario government announced its commitment to install High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes on sections of the provincial High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) network. However, because the proposed plan isn’t quite bold enough to effectively reduce congestion, raise revenue for transportation infrastructure and decrease emissions, our interactive agenda had top North American experts present their latest research and case studies on all aspects of HOT lanes implementation.

Based on experience in the US, Robin Lindsey, Jonathan Hall, Kathy McCune, Ricardo Sanchez and Mark Burris strongly advocated for a dynamically priced network (rather than a permit system), that is well-signed for driver safety/enforcement, effectively communicated to the public and eventually built out as an HOV3, 4-lane network (2 lanes in each direction). Jaymin Patel, Ben Miners, Michael Wilson and Bern Grush demonstrated that infrastructure costs can be reduced and revenues maximized by selecting the latest transponder technologies/on-board units and taking advantage of existing assets (e.g. Presto, 407 ETR’s back office). Using evidence from the recent Pan Am Games HOV lanes data, Jake Schabas said that properly designed HOT Lanes could increase the efficiency of the bus and highway network which would result in ridership growth and congestion reduction while potentially decreasing operational costs. John Howe recommended that political champions are needed to ensure that the new HOT lanes are a success but that they should be promoted in the context of larger issues related to electric/automated vehicles, fiscal disruption, changing personal mobility choices and democratization of road space.

Jake Schabas Metrolinx
Kathy McCune, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Mark Burris, Texas A&M University
Ben Miners, Intelligent Mechatronic Systems
Jaymin Patel, Kapsch TrafficCom North America
Ricardo Sanchez-Gomez, Cintra US
Michael Wilson, Accenture
Robin Lindsey, University of British Columbia
John Howe, AssetFuture Ltd.
Jonathan Hall, University of Toronto
Bern Grush, PayBySky

Over 84% of our 103 delegates stated that the HOT Lanes Forum met their expectations while the same number said it was excellent or very good value for money. Here are a few comments received:

  • “Excellent balance of history, practical experience, private money leverage, equipment, systems, public transit, future policy and Ontario’s baby step.”
  • “Provided good update on technology progress and reminder of range of issues to be addressed.”
  • “Excellent information. Well done.”
  • “I have always enjoyed your conferences but this one I found to be exceptionally strong and content-rich. Also, the audience’s level of engagement in the topic definitely helped.”
  • “One of the best events on this topic so far.”
  • “The HOT Lanes Forum was fantastic. Thanks very much for organizing it.”

The HOT Lanes Forum was generously sponsored by the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario (Platinum), 407 ETR (Gold), Accenture (Silver), the Ontario Good Roads Association (Bronze) and e-RegisterNow (Supporter).