The preservation and renewal of our transport system come at a significant cost to governmental agencies and contribute significantly towards global greenhouse gas emissions. Across fourteen “average” contexts classified by the U.S. Department of Transportation, this study probabilistically evaluates the life-cycle cost and global warming impact of alternative abatement strategies available to transportation agencies in managing their pavement infrastructure. The research relies on two algorithmic approaches to optimize the management of pavements: a trigger-value technique and a reinforcement learning algorithm. Invariant to traffic volume, our results show that by simply spending more “up front”, transportation agencies not only reduce the global warming impact of their pavements but also save money over their life-cycle. Surprisingly, these savings are particularly noteworthy for lower traffic volume roads typically managed by local municipalities with limited budgets. A higher “up front” investment reduces the global warming impact and life-cycle cost for a typical urban interstate by 19% and 2%, respectively; those life-cycle cost savings grow to nearly 16% for a local urban road while its global warming impact is also mitigated by 16%. We also show that more frequent rehabilitation of lower traffic-volume pavements not only increases agency expenditures but also their global warming impact. Conversely, the global warming impact of larger traffic-volume roadways, which are typically managed by state transportation agencies, can be reduced through increased rehabilitation spending. Our findings provide practitioners with valuable information around the life-cycle cost and savings of available pavement management strategies.

我们的交通系统的维护和更新给政府机构带来了巨大的成本，并且对全球温室气体排放做出了重大贡献。在美国交通部分类的 14 个“平均”背景下，本研究从概率上评估了交通机构在管理其路面基础设施时可用的替代减排策略的生命周期成本和全球变暖影响。该研究依赖于两种算法方法来优化路面管理：触发值技术和强化学习算法。与交通量无关，我们的结果表明，通过简单地“预先”花费更多，运输机构不仅可以减少其路面对全球变暖的影响，而且可以在其生命周期内节省资金。出奇，对于通常由预算有限的地方市政当局管理的交通量较低的道路，这些节省尤其值得注意。较高的“前期”投资可使典型城市州际公路的全球变暖影响和生命周期成本分别降低 19% 和 2%；当地城市道路的生命周期成本节省增加到近 16%，同时其对全球变暖的影响也减轻了 16%。我们还表明，更频繁地修复交通流量较低的路面不仅会增加机构支出，还会增加其对全球变暖的影响。相反，通常由州交通机构管理的较大交通量道路对全球变暖的影响可以通过增加修复支出来减少。