Sustainability Evaluation of Pavement Technologies through Multicriteria Decision Techniques

This paper presents findings of a recent study that was conducted in Canada on the quantification of pavement sustainability. The ultimate goal of this study was to develop a framework and explore the use of multicriteria decision-making techniques to formally assess the sustainability of pavement engineering alternatives. While sustainability is of increasing concern in pavement engineering, environmental performance is rarely used by pavement managers to select maintenance practices. There is therefore a need to develop a framework for the practical consideration of environmental effects in pavement management. This paper aims to provide a better understanding on the use of multicriteria decision-making techniques based on hierarchy process (AHP) and choosing by advantages (CBA) for the integration of sustainable aspects in the decision-making process of pavement management. A case study comparing pavement maintenance technologies using cold-in-place recycling and traditional solutions based on mill and overlay is analyzed for illustrative purposes. Results obtained using both multicriteria techniques are compared, including a sensitivity analysis on the importance of sustainability criteria in the evaluation of maintenance alternatives. Results obtained from this case study show that AHP and CBA provide consistent recommendations in which cold-in-place technologies are preferred over traditional alternatives. However, CBA presents the advantage of separating cost from the analysis, letting the agency to decide whether they are willing to pay more to use more sustainable alternatives. This finding has significant implications for engineering practice, given that AHP is widely used not only in the pavement field but in infrastructure management. Further research is needed to incorporate social aspects and existing barriers for the implementation of sustainable technologies in the proposed sustainability evaluation.