What They Want You to Do: Identifying the Scope and Priorities of Roadway Sustainability Rating Systems

Roadway sustainability rating systems are advertised as behavior modification tools, but they also tend to be black boxes making it difficult to determine the behavior modification they are seeking. The Global Framework for Sustainable Roadway Rating Systems is used to analyze four prominent sustainability rating systems applicable to roads (Greenroads, INVEST, Envision, CEEQUAL) to determine the scope of sustainability they address and the priorities they set. All four were found to be remarkably similar with scopes that favor the environmental dimension significantly over the human and economic dimensions of sustainability. This similarity can likely be traced to their common origins in the U.S. and U.K., two high income countries with similar sustainability contexts. While this may be encouraging for those adapting these systems to high income countries, it also suggests that these systems may not be appropriate to the rest of the world without major modification. Analysis of the 21 Global Framework indicators within these four rating systems shows healthy life, consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions are addressed more than any other. Conversely, indicators like income distribution, renewable energy, and employment are rarely, if ever, addressed. This analysis suggests the road industry appears to operationalize sustainability in a rather simple fashion: contribute to human health and happiness while consuming less.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADD40 Transportation and Sustainability.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Muench, Stephen T
  • Kosonen, Heta
  • Veeravigrom, Manisa
  • Yamaura, Julian
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2015-1-11 to 2015-1-15
• Date: 2015

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 24p
• Monograph Title: TRB 94th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Energy consumption; Environmental impacts; Greenhouse gases; Health; Ratings; Roads; Sustainable development
• Geographic Terms: United Kingdom; United States
• Subject Areas: Environment; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Society; I15: Environment; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01551686
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 15-3375
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 27 2015 11:23AM