A new whitepaper from the National Center for Sustainable Transportation and ITS Davis explores the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and road construction and maintenance. The paper is The Role of Life Cycle Assessment In Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Road Construction and Maintenance by John Harvey, Alissa Kendall, and Arash Saboori.
This white paper summarizes the state-of-knowledge and state-of-the-art in pavement LCA modeling, with particular emphasis on life cycle GHG emissions and on interpretation and analysis that lead to GHG reductions from the on-road transportation sector. This white paper synthesizes research from a number of previous and current projects, highlighting both broadly agreed upon methods and findings, and those that are emerging or currently debated. The goal is to inform federal, state, and local policymakers; pavement industry professionals; private pavement owners; and transportation and other researchers about the significance and role of pavement LCA in understanding and mitigating the negative environmental consequences of the pavement sector.
There has already been considerable research and implementation in this area in California. Some have developed better models to predict optimal maintenance strategies. Others have examined the tradeoffs between costs and greenhouse gas emissions in road resurfacing, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through management of pavement roughness. Some of these concepts have been incorporated into Caltrans' PaveM pavement management system.