Houston HOV/HOT Lane Implementation
The goal of this page is to communicate proper mapping of high occupancy vehicle and high occupancy toll lanes (HOV/HOT lanes) in the Houston area. As Waze does not fully support HOV lanes as of yet, this implementation accomplishes the following goals:
- Allows drivers to use the HOV/HOT lanes as toll routes during the allowed times
- Prevents HOV drivers who have manually routed into the HOV lanes from being improperly routed out of them
- Lays the groundwork for full HOV support when Waze implements support for different vehicle types in the app
More details about the currently enforced hours and HOV/HOT lane routes are available here: http://www.ridemetro.org/Pages/HOVandHOTLanes.aspx.
General Rules
- HOV/HOT lanes should be of the same road type as the road they travel alongside. There should be no preference or penalty for routing on the HOV/HOT lane based on road type.
- If applicable, only entrance ramps should have the toll flag set. This prevents drivers with toll avoidance enabled from being routed into the HOV/HOT lanes. It also allows an HOV driver with toll avoidance enabled that has manually driven into the HOV/HOT lanes from being prematurely routed out of the HOV/HOT lanes if the toll flag were set on the main HOV/HOT lanes or exit ramps.
- Some HOV/HOT lane routes allow only HOV drivers with a minimum number of passengers during certain hours. These are known as "2+" or "3+" drivers, and reflect the required minimum number of passengers during the restricted hours. These restrictions should be specified on the entrance ramps only.
- HOV/HOT lane restrictions on the main lanes should only be set up on two-way segments. This prevents routing the wrong direction, such as routing outbound during the morning inbound hours. Main lane restrictions should always be total restrictions and not vehicle specific.
- No restrictions or toll flag should be set on exit ramps
Special Cases
T Ramps
T ramps have a single entrance/exit that connects to surface streets and splits into separate inbound and outbound segments where it connects to the HOV/HOT lane. Special care must be given to these ramps in order to provide proper routing and TTS instructions:
- A divided one-way section should be placed at the beginning of this ramp configuration, with the toll flag set only on the inbound segment
- All segments leading up to the split should be unnamed. Turn instructions will pick up the segment names following the split.
- The segments following the split should be further split into a segment entering the HOV/HOT lane and a segment exiting the HOV/HOT lane
- Each segment should be named to match the respective ramp signage (ramp names are not shown in-app, so these extra segment names do not contribute to map clutter)
- The segment entering the HOV/HOT lane should be the only one with restrictions, and only in the direction going towards the HOV/HOT lane
Split Entrance/Exit
A Split Entrance/Exit utilizes divided one-way segments to provide proper routing for entering and exiting the HOV/HOT lane. In this example, the one-way entering the HOV/HOT lane has the toll flag and vehicle restrictions set. The one-way leaving the HOV/HOT lane has no restrictions. Only the one-way segments are named to provide turn instructions entering or exiting the HOV/HOT lane, all segments leading to and away from the one-way segments should have street name set to "None".
Split Entrance/Exit Example
Current HOV/HOT Lane Timings