Multi-attribute life cycle assessment of preventive maintenance treatments on road pavements for achieving environmental sustainability

Although a significant number of environmental protection measures concerning industrial products and processes have emerged over the past few years, similar measures have only started to appear in road construction and related practices. There is a need for understanding what a “sustainable pavement” would entail in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption. Since environmental impact assessment of major projects is becoming mandatory in many countries, various research projects attempt to evaluate the environmental impact of different pavement materials, technologies, or processes over the road life cycle. To support these efforts, there is a need to measure and describe different aspects of sustainability related to road pavements. In particular, keeping road pavements at high service levels through a preventive maintenance approach during the pavement service life has been proven to provide significant improvement of their performance and reduce their deterioration rate. This paper describes an innovative methodology to evaluate the environmental impact of preventive maintenance activities. It relates these activities to performance and cost during the service life of the pavement through a multi-attribute “life cycle cost, performance, and environmental analysis”. Emissions and energy saved adopting several preventive maintenance strategies were computed, relating them to cost and performance. Equipment and materials usually involved in road maintenance practices were also analyzed in order to assess specific fuel consumption and energy spent. An ad hoc index was ultimately created, adopting a script file to evaluate the best strategy through the multi-attribute approach. Results show how eco-effective it can be to improve pavement management practices on roads by implementing energy efficient treatments and strategies. Furthermore, eco-saving factors could represent a new and innovative feature to be added in the sustainability assessment process for pavements to evaluate different alternatives and assist authorities choosing between different investment solutions as a part of a decision support system.