The I-85 express lanes in the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan region are among the newest high-occupancy-toll (HOT) facilities in the United States. This paper examines travelers’ value of time and their willingness to pay for the I-85 express lanes, compares travel times and travel time reliability in the general purpose and HOT lanes, and discusses the benefits users gain from the facility. The study examined 9 months of toll and travel time data for drivers who traversed the entire length of the express lane corridor during the morning and afternoon peak periods. Median values of travel time savings were $36/h in the southbound morning peak period and $26/h in the northbound afternoon peak period. The express lanes exhibited reliability benefits relative to the general-purpose lanes, but this study does not quantify the value of those benefits because of the lack of stated-preference data. The value that HOT lane users attributed to their time saved exceeded the time value obtained by using the average wage rate in the region. These results for the value of travel time were found to be similar to those for HOT lane implementations in other locations.
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