Exclusive road or traffic lane limited to buses, vanpools, carpools, and emergency vehicles. (APTA1)
High Occupancy Vehicle Lane . Exclusive road or traffic lane limited to buses, vanpools, carpools, emergency vehicles, and in some cases, single occupant motorcycles. HOV lanes typically have higher operating speeds and lower traffic volumes than adjacent general purpose lanes. HOV lanes have proven to be successful in major metropolitan areas across the US ; however, their full effectiveness is usually not realized until about one to two years after implementation.
Protected lanes, usually located in the middle of freeways, that are used by buses, vanpools and carpools and private cars to carry more than one passenger at a time.
A highway or street lane reserved for the use of high-occupancy vehicles (such as cars with two or more passengers, buses, or carpools); may be designated as a HOV during peak periods or at all times.
also known as carpool lanes, high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes are lanes reserved for vehicles with two or more occupants. Usually, the HOV Lane is the far left lane, and jersey barriers or other forms of access control may separate the HOV Lane from the main lanes.
Roadway or roadway elements that are restricted to use by carpools, vanpools, transit or other HOVs during certain time periods. HOV facilities may consist of designated diamond lanes or exclusive facilities separated from conventional traffic barriers. Policies on the minimum number of passengers using HOV lanes should be generally determined by travel characteristics of individual corridors, capacity and traffic volume of HOV lanes, and other operational considerations.