Towards Sustainable Mobility: The Roadway Bridges Contribution

Bridges, due to their unique nature, are fundamental components of the road network. They have an important role in sustainable economic development as they are structures that allows to overcome obstacles created by nature, making circulation faster and safer. Climate action is one of the Sustainable Development Goals that The United Nations Development Programme defined, in 2015. Climate change is increasing the severity and frequency of climate-related extreme weather events around the globe. One of the parameters that enhances the global warming is the greenhouse gas emissions. For the past century, almost all internal combustion engines have been powered on petroleum fuels. Transportation is one of the most important contributors of greenhouse gases. In this paper it´s presented a methodology that allows the quantification of the life cycle costs and enhances the emission mitigation comparing different material alternatives of reinforced concrete roadway bridges. For the different material solutions, utilizing a probabilistic deterioration model, the lifetime of the different materials is computed, and the repair is scheduled. The methodology allows to define, and rank, the alternatives considering the user costs (vehicle operating costs; time costs; accidents costs, and toll costs) quantifying the correspondent vehicle greenhouse gases emission.