Concept of HOVs and Car pooling :

I really hate watching a single person travelling in a big luxury car or a SUV all by himself  on a busy day traffic. He can be tagged as a “Ecological Criminal” . He adds up to the pollution , makes inefficient use of resources like the road , the car in which he is sitting and the fuel he is wasting . Americans have developed a few very nice methods to cope with these problems.

HOVs :

1. Stands for High Occupancy Vehicles . Many busy roads in US have 3 lanes (instead of 2 , for to and fro routes). The extra lane , which usually is in the middle of the to and fro lanes remains open only for a limited period of time say 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM in morning and 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM in the evening.
2. During the morning hours , the lane is open for the vehicles from residential  area to the offices and during evening , from offices to residence . One of the most important criteria to use this lane is that there should be more than 3  persons in the car.If a person is found to be using this lane without the requisite no.s of travellers in the car , he might get penalised by the cops.
3. There are many advantages of this :

• People Travel together and bond over the travel discussing the latest issues and family matters
• Since HOV lane has lesser vehicles, the traffic moves faster than the other lanes
• People start early for work to catch the HOV lane , and hence reach office on time
• People start early from office and avoid overtime to catch HOV . Hence reaching home early and spend some quality time with thier family.
• People do car pooling

Car Pooling:

This is a process where ppl from the same locality or who stay together and work together or nearby offices travel in a common car instead of each traveling alone in thier car .Either passengers may share the price of fuel and parking or they may alternate the cars used , depending upon how many persons in the car pool have cars. The major advantages :

1. Reduces pollution as it decreases the carbon footprint per person
2. Better utilisation of the cars,fuel and roads
3. People socialise while travelling .
4. More economical as ppl share the gas and parking charges
5. Have seen many ppl giving lifts so that they dont travel alone and can take advantage of the HOV too
6. Reduces stress commuting to and fro from work

One of the major disadvantages of car pooling , everyone in the pool have to synchronise thier time based on the driver’s timings ; but the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

The above two are possibly two very useful ideas to tackle the traffic congestion in most of the Indian metros considering the fact that the development of  infrastructure  also has its limits beyond which it can’t grow , but the population growth , though a bit controlled in last few yrs , is still growing at an alarming rate. But there are a few precautions that need to be taken too. Don’t give lift to others if you are traveling very late and u don’t have a right feeling about the person . Consider your own safety first and foremost.

And i have even seen profilic persons travelling in local transport or thier bikes instead of cars .  Using public transport is a very effective way of coping these issues too.

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