Comparative pavement life cycle assessment with parameter uncertainty

• A full life cycle analysis is conducted for two alternative pavement designs.
• Data quality and measurement uncertainty are included in comparative assessments.
• Uncertainty in roughness prediction is accounted in the use-phase.
• Contribution of different phases and their uncertainty are characterized and compared.

We present a comparative life cycle assessment of pavements considering measurement uncertainty and the data-quality uncertainty. We account for the uncertainty due to the prediction of roughness over pavement lifetime and propagate the consequence into the overall footprint. The uncertainty propagation is conducted using a Monte Carlo simulation. Making use of a comparison indicator, the difference in the environmental impacts of two alternative designs is statistically characterized taking into account the correlation in the input parameters. The contribution of different phases and their associated uncertainty characterized and compared for two pavements.