Sustainability Assessment (LCA) – Virtual City Model

A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was carried out to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with the pavement infrastructure system. The LCA was conducted over a 30-year period and included three infrastructure subsystems: highway pavement, urban pavement, and drainage networks. The study was based on updated life cycle inventory data, including environmental impact factors on major infrastructure materials such as asphalt, gravel, concrete, PVC, and steel. The maintenance schedules developed for Scenario 4 were used to calculate lifecycle maintenance interventions. The quantity of materials was estimated using geometric parameters such as pavement width, pavement length, and pavement thickness. The layers were also separated to assess their individual maintenance intensity. The environmental impacts were calculated by proportionally estimating lifecycle material demand and applying environmental coefficients to calculate energy consumption and emissions of CO2, NOx, and SO2. The environmental costs were calculated using standard unit damage costs.

The LCA results revealed that the integrated road infrastructure system has a significant impact on the environment during its lifecycle, primarily due to material production and repeated maintenance interventions. The LCA results for Scenario 4 were estimated to have a total environmental impact of approximately 3,007,783 units of energy consumption, 179,938,654 units of CO2 emissions, 6,108,35 units of NOx emissions, and 1,228,042 units of SO2 emissions, making up a total environmental cost of approximately 4.80 billion.

LCI Materials:

Best-Scenario Cost:

References:

International Organization for Standardization (ISO). (2006). ISO 14040:2006 — Environmental management: Life cycle assessment — Principles and framework. Geneva: ISO.
International Organization for Standardization (ISO). (2006). ISO 14044:2006 — Environmental management: Life cycle assessment — Requirements and guidelines. Geneva: ISO.
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). (2016). Pavement Life Cycle Assessment Framework (FHWA-HIF-16-014). U.S. Department of Transportation.
European Committee for Standardization (CEN). (2019). EN 15804:2012+A2:2019 — Sustainability of construction works: Environmental product declarations — Core rules for the product category of construction products. Brussels: CEN.
European Commission, DG MOVE; CE Delft (lead). (2019). Handbook on the external costs of transport (Version 2019). Publications Office of the European Union.
Umweltbundesamt (German Environment Agency). (2022). Environmental Unit Cost Lists. Dessau-Roßlau: UBA.