Early use of LCA crucial in road infrastructure planning

Including a life cycle perspective is central to improved road infrastructure planning. On 22 April, Sofiia Miliutenko successfully defended her dissertation "Consideration of life cycle energy use and greenhouse gas emissions for improved road infrastructure planning". The aim of Sofiia’s thesis was to contribute to road infrastructure planning by developing methods and models including a life cycle perspective.

In several case studies, greenhouse gas emissions and energy use at different life cycle stages of road infrastructure were assessed using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). A main contribution of the thesis is in terms of development of LCA methodology for road infrastructure. Moreover, the coupling of LCA with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the possibility to integrate LCA in early stages of road infrastructure planning were investigated and suggested as possible ways forward.