Pavement Preservation: A Solution for Sustainability

The Ministry of Transportation of Ontario, Canada (MTO), is dedicated to maintaining quality roadways in a sustainable manner. In recent years, MTO has implemented pavement preservation strategies to maximize cost savings in repair operations and to maintain pavement condition. Pavement preservation treatments are considered sustainable because they improve pavement quality and durability and extend pavement service life, while reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Pavement preservation is a proactive, planned strategy that extends the life of the pavement and provides a cost-effective solution for pavement management. This paper outlines the various pavement preservation treatments used by MTO to achieve sustainability. These preservation treatments include crack sealing, slurry seal, microsurfacing, chip seal, ultrathin bonded friction course, fiber-modified chip seal, hot-mix patching, and hot in-place recycling. With use of the PaLATE software, pavement sustainability is quantified by comparing the energy consumption and GHG emissions generated for various pavement preservation strategies against typical rehabilitation and reconstruction treatments. This paper presents the benefits of pavement preservation by considering the service life of each treatment and calculating the associated energy consumption and GHG emissions per service year. Results indicate that pavement preservation strategies provide a significant reduction in energy use and GHG emissions when compared with traditional rehabilitation and reconstruction treatments. Although pavement preservation has been proved to be a cost-effective solution, there are numerous challenges and barriers to overcome. Some of the challenges and solutions as well as the strategies to promote pavement preservation for sustainability are presented in the paper.