Road projects generally begin with broad investigations and progressively advance towards more detailed and immediate issues. Road corridors, which represent rough locations of alternative road alignments, are usually identified, evaluated, and compared in early planning stages. Commonly at this stage, costs estimates of the identified road alignment are made, whereas their environmental impacts, such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, often are insufficiently accounted for. GHG emissions caused by the construction process are frequently ignored altogether. Despite indications that benefits of decisions and measures can be considerably higher if implemented in early planning stages, much emphasis is put on later stages. Our study presents an approach for estimating project-based GHG emissions of alternative alignments in early planning stages. The findings indicate that if adopted in the planning process, the approach can support projects in reducing their GHG emissions.
展开▼
