Green-House Gases (GHGs) are emitted into the atmosphere in significant amounts produced mainly by human sources and activities. Globally, the road transport sector is a significant source of GHGs and particularly of CO2 emissions. Transport sector includes pavements and pavement roughness is a factor that directly affects fuel consumption and consequently has a significant impact on vehicle emissions. Many studies have attempted to define the connection between pavement roughness in terms of International Roughness Index (IRI) and fuel consumption, under the scope of pavement sustainability. However, the requirements of multiple parameters and extensive data processing have raised the need for solid and simplified approaches in practice. As such, the objective of the current study is to incorporate the assessment of vehicle emissions into pavement management processes by formulating a simple and credible relationship between vehicle GHGs and pavement roughness. Analysed data comes from multiple segments of two interurban controlled-access highways with different pavement condition. Several combinations of vehicle and fuel type suggest the development of concise formulas to estimate equivalent CO2 emissions based on IRI measurements. Verification and validation of the developed formulas was applied via appropriate statistical techniques.

Road; Pavement Roughness; IRI; Greenhouse Gases; Modelling