Pavement assets play a crucial role in the development of society, being the backbone of socio-economic development but also a key contributor to climate change. Despite their importance, available funds for their maintenance are often insufficient, leading to their rapid deterioration. In order to assist agencies in decision-making, pavement asset management systems include a set of tools to support agencies in the decision on which infrastructure of a network should be preserved, maintained and/or rehabilitated. However, the evaluation of these networks has traditionally focused on economic and technical aspects. Considering that transportation infrastructure impacts directly on the evolution of social and natural environments, management of these assets needs to be sustainable.

This article proposes a methodology for the sustainable management of Pavement assets, by integrating technical, economic, environmental, social and political aspects in the Life Cycle-Assessment of a network. The methodology proposes a framework that integrates these aspects in the various components and processes considered in a management system. The methodology incorporates a Geographic Information System as the main platform to pursue the socio-political analysis based on geographical referencing of formalized variables. The proposed framework is applied to an illustrative example dealing with the management of an urban pavement network in Santiago, Chile. Outcomes of the case study demonstrate that it is possible to integrate sustainable aspects, despite their diverse nature, in a management system supported by a Geographic Information System.

Though many states and local public agencies are encouraging and implementing sustainability plans or efforts, integration of an entire sustainable transportation program inside a state Department of Transportation (DOT) can be a particularly complex undertaking. Traditional planning, design, and construction dynamics, where any given discipline is focused solely on their respective area of expertise, is not always conducive to adopting and/or integrating a collaborative sustainability process. Amongst these challenges, developing a state DOT sustainable transportation program from the ground up, that encompasses an agency wide approach including administration, project planning, design, construction, and systems operations and maintenance, is a particularly daunting effort. Developing a process to operationalize such a far reaching sustainable transportation program that properly reflects these new and novel economic, social, and environmental considerations and maintains executive management buy-in, was experimental at the state DOT level. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) presented their initial experience with sustainability tools and process identification at the 2015 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. Since that time, ADOT has made measurable inroads in understanding the sustainability playing field as it encompasses transportation systems, has begun completing the initial program framework, and initiated subsequent operationalization of these activities.  This paper presents how ADOT piloted this process.

The Illinois Tollway (Tollway) is committed to making sustainability part of everything they do, from planning and design to construction, to maintenance and operation of their 286-mile system of toll roads and bridges throughout Northern Illinois. This commitment is key to the goal to make their 15-year, $12 billion capital program, Move Illinois: The Illinois Tollway Driving the Future, the “cleanest and greenest program” in the agency’s history. In order to meet their sustainability goals, tools were needed to measure the Tollway’s past, current and future sustainability improvements and to drive and confirm continual improvements.

FHWA released the Infrastructure Voluntary Evaluation Sustainability Tool (INVEST) in 2012 as a web-based self-evaluation tool based on sustainable practices and activities that enables transportation practitioners to evaluate the sustainability of their projects. The Tollway selected INVEST to integrate throughout their projects and programs in order to measure and drive the continual sustainable performance to which they are committed.

The Tollway developed a program for implementing INVEST with modifications required for their projects. The first year of this plan has been executed, including the development of an implementation manual, and baseline and on-going project evaluations. Results show remarkable improvements in the sustainability of projects over time. These results provide: 1) targets and specific input to ongoing and upcoming projects, 2) key information to educate design teams, and 3) data for stakeholders to demonstrate advances being made in sustainability.

The project lifecycle includes three phases: System Planning, Project Development and Operations and Maintenance. Thoughtfully and programmatically incorporating sustainable practices throughout each of these phases allows an agency to take advantage of complementary sustainable benefits that improve the overall sustainability of an agency’s transportation program, in essence, the total sustainability benefit equals more than the sum of its parts. The Illinois Tollway (Tollway) is an industry leader in sustainability and is one of the first agencies to implement a sustainability tool to promote sustainability throughout all of these phases on their 286-mile system of toll roads and bridges throughout Northern Illinois. The Tollway selected FHWA’s Infrastructure Voluntary Evaluation Sustainability Tool (INVEST) and moved forward integrating its use throughout each of these phases in order to measure and drive the continual sustainable performance to which they are committed.

This paper focuses on the implementation of the System Planning and Operations and Maintenance Programs. The Tollway developed an implementation plan for INVEST and has completed the first year of the plan including coordination with the local metropolitan planning organization, the execution of baseline and current year evaluations, and identification of opportunities to improve. Results show remarkable improvements in the sustainability of projects over time and provide key information to program managers to improve specific areas of sustainability. These results provide: 1) specific areas for improvement, 2) target goals for sustainability achievement, 3) key information to educate program teams, and 3) data for stakeholders to demonstrate advances being made in sustainability.

Roadway sustainability rating systems are a recognized way to communicate, quantify, and evaluate sustainability for roadway projects. In the literature they are principally scrutinized for their relationship to infrastructure practices. However, it is also useful to understand how they relate to the concept of sustainability itself. To do this, a standard sustainability framework is used to quantify the “sustainability scope” (breadth of sustainability addressed and the proportion addressing human, environment, and economic dimensions as well as other sub-categories) of four prominent sustainability rating systems applicable to roads (Greenroads, INVEST, Envision, CEEQUAL). All four are found to be remarkably similar with scopes that favor the environmental dimension significantly over the human and economic dimensions. A short list of sustainability ideas (healthy life, consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions) is found to dominate all four systems, while another group of common sustainability topics are relatively insignificant. Sustainability scope is relatively independent of credit weighting and impractical to substantially change. These findings have implications in future rating system design and refinement as well as the very nature of sustainability as the roadway industry sees it.

The triple bottom line of sustainability must co-exist within a system’s framework in order to effectively protect and maintain the environment, society, and the economy. As the need for measuring sustainability increases in the transportation sector, rating systems seek to provide a qualitative analysis for roadway projects. This case study reviews and assesses various sustainable transportation rating systems for corridor planning. After careful examination of eight rating systems, Sustainable Transportation Analysis and Rating System (STARS) met all of the decision criteria for the James Madison University pilot project on Grace Street. The STARS framework was applied to a local, mixed-use, multi-modal corridor on a college campus. Many of the lessons learned from the STARS pilot related to capacity-building and collaboration, which was an intended outcome of using a rating system on campus. The focus of the paper is on the evaluation and selection of the rating system and the outcomes of applying the system to campus planning for transportation and sustainability.

Climate change is already causing a number of demonstrable effects on transport and logistics systems, especially in vulnerable coastal and urban areas. These effects are expected to worsen and many are speaking of the need for transport and logistics systems (and human/infrastructure systems more generally) to be designed to be more 'resilient' and ‘sustainable.’ This article considers the various definitions of the terms “resilient” and “sustainable” and “economic efficiency” and then details some preliminary answers to the following questions: (1) what factors build up resilience and what are the 'efficiency' implications of those factors? (2) what sorts of actions increase resiliency and what are their 'efficiency' implications? (3) how 'efficient' is the status quo ex ante to begin with? (4) is the 'efficiency' baseline itself sensible? The article then concludes that some resilience and sustainability adaptations may in fact increase economic efficiency if done well. However, there certainly will be a trade-off between the two given the changes we are seeing and some material sacrifice for ‘mere’ survival will surely be needed.

Climate change is an increasing concern of agencies, governments, and societies around the world. It poses potential adverse impacts to civil infrastructure, with consequences that include increased financial resources, economic impacts, social impacts, and planning issues. This paper aims to enhance and broaden the discussion on sustainability and the importance of the consideration of social, environmental, and technical aspects in relation to infrastructure planning. Particularly under climate change, these considerations allow for more holistic, effective, and long-term benefits to communities and economies. This paper introduces the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach to sustainability as a framework for holistic infrastructure planning under the uncertainty of climate change. The Technical Pillar will focus on the impacts of climate change on road infrastructure and the cost-benefit of potential adaptation options; Environmental considerations include quantifying the potential increase in GHG emissions from increased roadworks required by climate change damages; and social information will be quantified using an index based upon the SoVI method. Each of these ‘pillars’ of sustainability will be analyzed individually and mapped using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Finally, a ‘holistic’ approach will be discussed where these individual layers are combined using GIS to display the information. A case study focused on the Sacramento Region of California is used as a proof-of-concept for how the triple bottom line framework introduced here can be utilized to provide actionable, more equitable decision-making for investment in critical infrastructure adaptation policy.

Analyzing sustainability impacts of alternative vehicle technologies such as battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) is an emerging topic in the transportation research. This research aims to present a novel approach to quantify macro-level social, economic, and environmental impacts of the alternative vehicle options. System dynamics modeling is used to capture complex dynamic relationships between economy, society, the environment, and the U.S. transportation. This study also aims advance the current understanding transportation sustainability and existing life cycle assessment methods by considering all of the inherent mutual relationships in the environmental, social, and economic aspects. A total of seven macro level impact categories are selected and the impacts are quantified from 1980 to 2050, which are global warming potential, particulate matter formation, photochemical oxidant formation, contribution to gross domestic product, vehicle ownership cost, human health impacts and employment generation, and. Extreme customer choice scenarios are tested for each vehicle type to compare their maximum potential impacts. BEVs are found to be a better alternative for most of sustainability impact categories in long run, while they are economically not preferable until mid-2020s. Analysis results revealed that any alternative vehicle option, alone, cannot reduce the rapidly increasing atmospheric temperature and the negative impacts of the global climate change, even though the entire fleet is replaced with the most environmental friendly vehicle option. 

Sustainability assessment systems are increasingly being used as tools to encourage more sustainable practices in the provision of civil infrastructure. In several cases, agencies have developed unique sustainability assessment systems, or adopted modified versions of sustainability assessment systems currently available for a wider market. In any case, the nature of sustainability as a multi-criteria problem requires that preferences must be expressed in order to determine optimal outcomes for more sustainable decision making. These preferences are typically expressed in terms of weights applied to the various criteria in sustainability assessment systems, and the techniques used to derive these weights, as well as how the weights are applied, varies across the many different systems. In this paper, the authors review how weighting is typically included in sustainability assessment systems and make recommendations about how some of the incongruities between the various systems can be understood. Furthermore, the authors present the results from a pilot study which was conducted using an online survey system, and then use the results to make recommendations regarding future surveys designed to elicit weights from such a group.