Benchmarking Pavement Environmental Performance Using Data-Driven Modeling and Policy

Abstract

Recently, federal and state governments have been implementing policy to reduce embodied emissions coming from the production of materials. However, pavement materials impact emissions throughout the pavement lifecycle, not just during production. This paper addresses how a new pavement evaluation system and policy framework might drive better solutions to reduce carbon emissions, from a climate change standpoint. The main components include: establishing why current pavement rating systems and current policy are not sufficient, performing a data-driven analysis with a grading and scorecard system to assess, compare, and summarizing pavement design quality, and proposing an effective policy framework to implement the system.