Rolling resistance and traffic delay impact on a road pavement life cycle carbon footprint analysis

The application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to road pavements has been continuously evolving and improving over the last years, however there are several limitations and uncertainties in the introduction of some components in the framework, such as road pavement rolling resistance—in terms of pavement surface properties—and traffic delay during maintenance activities. This paper analyses the influence of methodological assumptions and the model used to estimate the increased emissions for traffic delay and road pavement rolling resistance on the results of an LCA. The Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions related to these two phases of a pavement LCA will be calculated for a UK case study, using different models, and a sensitivity test is performed on some specific input variables. The results show that the models used and the input variables significantly affect the LCA results, both for the rolling resistance and the traffic delay