Influence of Pavement Condition on Environmental Costs
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 140, Issue 10
Abstract
Pavement conditions significantly influence the generation of nuisances that influence the environment and increase the costs borne by society. This paper presents a new tool designed to monetize and incorporate environmental impacts in decision-making processes. The Pavement Environmental Impact Model (PEIM) is the first attempt to adapt the Impact Pathway Approach (IPA) to assess the emission, dispersion, and impact of noise, air pollution, and greenhouse gases so that environmental impacts can be included in the economic models of pavement management units. The results of a simulation performed with PEIM for an urban collector road with annual average traffic of 10,000 vehicles per day and a linear density of 240 people per kilometer showed that, within the assumptions/limitations of PEIM, environmental costs were expected to range from 876,000 to 1,983,000 Canadian dollars per kilometer per year for pavement roughness ranging from 1 to . Moreover, although noise costs are consistently disregarded in pavement management, it was expected to represent 54% of the total environmental costs when pavement roughness was above . Results demonstrate that PEIM is a suitable tool for roughly estimating environmental costs and helping pavement management units to choose the optimal management alternative.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the MTQ (Ministère des Transports du Québec) for their collaboration in providing some of the data used in this study. We would also like to sincerely thank Yves Savard and Martin Boucher for their valuable help and support, and three anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on the manuscript. This study was supported in part by a fellowship from the FQRNT (Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la nature et les technologies).
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Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 140 • Issue 10 • October 2014
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 5, 2013
Accepted: May 19, 2014
Published online: Jun 23, 2014
Published in print: Oct 1, 2014
Discussion open until: Nov 23, 2014
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