A model for estimating the High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes parameters

Optimizing the utility of transportation system in urban areas is one of the most important topics for transportation planners particularly under economic crisis circumstances. Among available solutions, implementing high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes is an increasingly popular alternative to deal with traffic congestion and associated problems. This study is an attempt to establish a model for estimating HOT lanes parameters under various pricing schemes. The objective of this research is to develop a model which uses different pricing strategies to come up with a toll price which meets the desired objective. After introduction and explaining the model framework, the paper contains three sections: price elasticity model, speed-flow model and the user-equilibrium model. At the final section, two numerical examples are presented.