01592498

Component

The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method which aggregates the environmental impacts associated within the life cycle of a pavement. Incorporation of LCA has been mostly focused on the emissions produced in the construction phase and in its constituents, such as material extraction and manufacturing, hauling of materials, etc. Less emphasis has been given to emissions caused by traffic delays during maintenance operations due to a lack of well-defined methodology and unfamiliarity about the magnitude of these emissions. In this study, an approach is proposed to measure traffic delay emissions by combining Users cost approach in Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) with Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES 2014) developed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). The LCA was implemented on four different pavement designs and their Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) were accounted in the assessment. The GWPs of the four designs with and without considering traffic delay emissions (in carbon dioxide equivalents: CO₂e) were 52.5, 50.8, 49.6, and 21.8 versus 6.1, 4.5, 4.3, and 13.0 thousand tons per mile, respectively. The differences between the GWPs with and without traffic delay emissions expose the need to include traffic delay emissions in the LCA.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADC60 Standing Committee on Resource Conservation and Recovery.

01584066

16-5858

English

16p

2016

Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Alternatives analysis; Carbon dioxide; Exhaust gases; Global warming; Life cycle analysis; Life cycle costing; Pavement design; Traffic delays

Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES)

Design; Environment; Highways; Pavements; I15: Environment; I22: Design of Pavements, Railways and Guideways

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2016 Paper #16-5858

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 12 2016 6:35PM