Researcher: Andrea Vargas Farias
Project Duration: June 2020 – December 2022
Project Partner: Rijkswaterstaat
Project Description:
An important goal of Rijkswaterstaat is to be 100% climate neutral and sustainable in 2050. At the moment, Rijkswaterstaat still plans the maintenance for the highway network without full consideration of sustainable aspects. One reason for this is the uncertainty about effects of maintenance measures on sustainability, for example, the effect of the use of different materials on the CO2 emissions of traffic. Another reason is the unclear implication of sustainability for the life-cycle costs of highways, for example, to which extent does the reusability of material outweigh its shorter lifetime. The current challenge for Rijkswaterstaat lies in incorporating sustainable aspects in the maintenance planning and improving the understanding of sustainable maintenance strategies and their cost implications.
The aim of this design project is to:
“Develop a decision-support tool to improve the sustainability assessment of maintenance strategies for highways”
The expected outcome of the tool to be developed is:
- Reducing the uncertainty related to maintenance effects on sustainability
- Providing insights into the cost implications of sustainable maintenance measures
- Improving the life-cycle cost calculations for highway maintenance strategies by considering sustainability effects
- Including sustainability assessment criteria in the cost-benefit analysis of highway maintenance