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Impacts of flexible pavement design and management decisions on life cycle energy consumption and carbon footprint

  • ROADWAYS AND INFRASTRUCTURE
  • Published:
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

The study aims to develop a methodological framework to estimate life cycle energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to pavement design and management decisions. Another objective is to apply the framework to the design and management of flexible highway pavement in Hong Kong. Traditionally, pavement design and management decisions are solely based on economic considerations. This study quantifies the relationships between such decisions and the environmental impacts, thereby helping highway agencies understand the environmental implications of their decisions and make more balanced decisions to improve highway sustainability.

Methods

(1) A methodological framework is developed by integrating the mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide (ME-PDG) and life cycle assessment (LCA) methods. (2) The calculation processes for the detailed components in the framework are proposed by synthesizing existing models, data, and tools. (3) In applying the framework to pavement design and management in Hong Kong, a large number of simulations are conducted to generate pavement performance data at different combinations of pavement thickness, roughness trigger value, and traffic levels. (4) GHG emissions and energy consumption are calculated for each simulation scenario, and the results are used to build statistical regression models. (5) The simulation and calculation results are also analyzed to gain additional insights on the environmental impacts of pavement design and management decisions.

Results and conclusions

(1) The developed framework that integrates ME-PDG and LCA methods is useful to assess pavement-related life cycle energy consumption and GHG emissions. (2) The developed regression models can well capture the trends of life cycle energy consumption and GHG emissions at different traffic levels, using asphalt concrete (AC) layer thickness and roughness trigger value as independent variables. (3) Material production, road use, and congestion due to road closure dominate pavement-related life cycle energy use and GHG emissions. (4) Optimum pavement thickness and international roughness index (IRI) trigger values exist, and they vary with traffic levels.

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Authors’ contributions

The main contribution is the development of a methodological framework for the calculation of pavement-related energy consumption and GHG emissions by integrating ME-PDG and LCA. The major components of the framework include (1) process integration of LCA and ME-PDG, (2) calculation methods for each of the seven phases in LCA, (3) integrated equations for estimating life cycle energy use and GHG emissions, and (4) regression models for quantifying the effects of pavement design/management decisions on environmental loads. Although this framework is introduced in the context of flexible pavements, with slight modification, it may be applied to other pavement types. In addition, by including estimated agency and user costs at different stages of the pavement life cycle, the framework may be expanded to assess the economic performance of different pavement design and management options. This will enable the agency to make more balanced decisions to enhance the different dimensions of highway pavement sustainability.

The findings of the case study contribute to the assessment of pavement design and maintenance decisions in Hong Kong from the perspective of environmental conservation. Traditionally, such decisions mainly focus on cost considerations. The developed regression models reveal the relationships between pavement design/management decisions and life cycle energy consumption and GHG emissions. Hence, the agency can evaluate the impacts of their decisions on environment and choose the environmentally friendly alternatives. The methodology and insights gained from the case study may be applied to highway pavement design and management in other regions.

Future work

Both the methodological framework and its application may be improved in the future. All the calculations are performed manually in this study. In the future, a module may be added to ME-PDG outputs to facilitate the automatic calculation of environmental loads of pavement design and management alternatives. The application may be further improved by addressing the following issues. (1) Traffic volume may be considered as a continuous variable instead of a discrete variable. This would significantly increase the simulation scenarios, and hence, automatic ME-PDG simulations and LCA calculations are needed. (2) The impacts of asphalt mixture types on pavement performance and life cycle environmental impacts may be incorporated. (3) In this study, only one type of maintenance technique (resurfacing) is considered. Although resurfacing is the only commonly used maintenance technique in Hong Kong, a variety of other techniques are available and widely used in other regions. In future studies, alternative maintenance methods may be incorporated into the analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

    Dan Chong & Yuhong Wang

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Yuhong Wang

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  1. Dan Chong
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  2. Yuhong Wang
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Correspondence to Yuhong Wang.

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Responsible editor: Omer Tatari

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Chong, D., Wang, Y. Impacts of flexible pavement design and management decisions on life cycle energy consumption and carbon footprint. Int J Life Cycle Assess 22, 952–971 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-016-1202-x

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