Pavement-Vehicle Interaction Research at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub

In 2009, the US cement and concrete industries established the Concrete Sustainability Hub at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in order to develop more sustainable and durable pavement infrastructure and buildings. With regards to pavements, a primary thrust of MIT's activities has been improving the Life Cycle Assessment practices to better quantify the environmental impacts over the life of a pavement. In doing their research, MIT determined that the environmental impact from the "use phase" almost always plays a substantial role and can often surpass the materials, construction and maintenance phases combined. Furthermore, they found that most of a pavement's use-phase impacts come from emissions by vehicles using the pavement due to excess rolling resistance between the pavement and the vehicle. The study of assessing how much excess fuel or energy is used by vehicles due to pavement affects is called pavement-vehicle interaction or PVI. This paper summarizes the PVI research findings to date and shows how incorporating PVI-related impacts into the decision-making process can lead to meaningful reductions in vehicle emissions.