Anyone know how metro manages it? It's closed for tolls from 6:30-8 inbound and 5-6 outbound... right when I'd like to use it. Aside from a metro cop standing at the entrance of the managed lanes how do they know that cars going through the HOV lane actually are HOVs? As well, what would happen if I got on in the HOV only time frame but still used the toll lane?

They have no way of knowing if you are single or 2+ unless they have a person the visually inspect.

I fyou use the toll lane during non toll hours, you will get charged for a toll as well as receive a ticket in the mail. As previously mentioned, only if there is a cop waiting at the end will they bust you for illegally using the hov lane. don't be that guy

If you are in the lane legally as a single occupant and go through the "HOV Only" side of the declaration lane, the only way you will get cited is if there is a person in the booth that is relaying images to a downstream officer with a handheld unit with your photo that pops up.

METRO either has or has not discontinued paying staff to sit in the booths though; I'll let you be the judge of that.

If you are a single occupant user that is in the lane illegally, you can get pulled over by what are usually motorcycle cops visually checking vehicle occupancy at any point along the corridor.

How do the images tell if you have an occupied car seat in the rear with dark rear window tint, etc?

I don't believe they can. If you go through the toll lane during a non-toll hour it's pretty much an automatic ticket as they know what time cars should be going through that camera. The HOV lanes run pretty much on an honor system with an occasional police ticketing presence to keep everyone in check/raise funds for the county and/or city

The images are very high resolution and are taken from both the front and the back of the vehicle. From the hardware and software I have seen in the booths, I would say that a second occupant will be seen approximately 95% of the time.

But again, that's if the system is being used at all. There is no automatic occupancy detection going on at the declaration lanes. The system was designed so that HOV enforcement can only be done with humans observing the photos taken in real-time and then relaying a violator's photo to a downstream officer.