Eco-sustainable solutions for the maintenance of the road pavements in the Republic of San Marino

Abstract

In the last decade, climatic changes have caused intense natural phenomena such as heavy precipitations, dry and hot weather, river flood waves, sea level increase and fluctuations that impact on the social life, significantly. All over the world, governments are now asked to stimulate and to adopt new tools to preserve natural resources and to reduce atmospheric pollutions. Therefore, new complex aspects have to be considered also in management and maintenance of road network matching policies, investment strategies and engineered solutions. Since 2016, the San Marino state-owned enterprises for public works (Azienda Autonoma di Stato per i Lavori Pubblici) and for public utilities (Azienda Autonoma di Stato per i Servizi Pubblici), in collaboration with the University of the Republic of San Marino, have gradually introduced eco-sustainable techniques for the maintenance of road pavements and utility trenches, involving local construction enterprises and mix plants. This paper describes the approach and the specifications for eco-sustainable road materials such as cold and hot recycled asphalt concrete, cement treated recycled materials and cold surface treatments. These materials are used in San Marino for road pavements and in the utility trenching.

Methodologic Recommendations to Implement Pavement Management Systems and Eco-Sustainable Solutions for Local Road Administrations

“…Another method merges the use of condition indexes and comparison methods. Several experiences from Italian municipalities suggest classifying the inspection units using a reference scale of pavement conditions based on the calculation of PCI on some specific road sections [16] (Figure 3). All these methods include a catalogue of distresses that identifies, at least, the type of distress and the measurement methods.…”

“…Moving from the road network level to project level, LRA should consider eco-sus tainable materials, such as recycling techniques and surface treatments as an alternativ to traditional techniques to mitigate the environmental footprint of the repair works. Eco sustainable methods can be quickly introduced as new techniques to rehabilitate roa pavements using tailored specifications for LRA [28].…”

“…The following actions are suggested to be implemented in the PMS: specific upgrading lessons for stakeholders, organisation of recycled materials supply, in-lab mix design of the eco-sustainable techniques, building of trial sections at the mix plant, building of demonstration sites and monitoring of the demonstration site under real traffic volume. If good full-scale monitoring results and social and environmental benefits are obtained, the selected technique can be fully adopted as a maintenance method to be used in the multi-year planning activities [28].…”

“…However, tight requirements for RA, rejuvenators and products should be established during the quality control phase [30,31]. Since base courses can be constructed using cold procedures, HRAC can be utilized for wearing and binder courses [28].…”

“…This paper summarises skills and tools coming from the application of tailored PMS in several municipalities in central Italy which manage road networks ranging from 200 to 1000 km, employing approximately two technicians every 200 km [8,9,16].…”