Life cycle cost analysis allows to identify profit areas of concrete pavements

The need for constructing road pavements characterized by controllable technical performances, high durability and reduced construction and maintenance costs, led to the development of design criteria and procedures for the technical and economic appraisal of the pavements based on Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA). New materials, new technologies and innovating solutions give the chance to construct safe, durable and environmentally qualified concrete pavements whose advantages could be brought in evidence by LCCA. The paper analyses the flexible, semirigid and plain concrete pavement solutions given by the Italian Catalogue for motorway pavements, for different traffic and subgrade conditions. Each structural solution is characterized in terms of durability and performance with reference to roughness, rutting, faulting and cracking. The construction, maintenance and user costs are then quantified and the safety and environmental related costs are identified. The comparison of the whole life economic performances of each solution allows to identify the traffic and subgrade conditions in which the plain concrete pavements offer the best solutions for a sustainable mobility. Moreover, it demonstrates that a pavement design based on LCCA principles is able to quantify the advantages characterizing each design alternative and to offer a good decision tool to choose the best solution in each specific design situation.