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Life cycle assessment methodology was applied in this study to calculate environmental impacts of a 3.5-km-long dual carriageway asphalt highway section case study in Abu Dhabi across following life cycle stages: material extraction and production, material and equipment transport, construction, maintenance and rehabilitation; assuming a 30 years lifetime. Environmental impact assessment for air emissions and energy consumption generated by complete roadworks, namely: earthworks; pavement courses; concrete works for traffic barriers, kerbs, parapets, traffic signs, and light systems. A comprehensive analysis of environmental impact reduction was performed using recycled construction waste; reclaimed asphalt pavement; warm-mix asphalt with synthetic zeolite additives; and, slag as alternate material and production options. Actual field data for the road section using virgin materials and traditional asphalt production mix for pavement works and Portland cement concrete for the complete concrete works were used as the baseline case. Routine maintenance and periodic rehabilitation by milling and repaving wearing course (<4.5 cm depth) every 5 years was also analysed from an environmental impact reduction perspective. Environmental assessment considered all indicators from ReCiPe midpoint method. Results show that earthworks account for a significant portion (26% of CO2eq.) of the environmental impacts for complete roadworks. The life cycle impact results of hot-mix asphalt and warm-mix asphalt were almost equal due to addition of synthetic zeolites. Results showed significant environmental impact reduction across all indicators, after coupling all alternate options as: 34% in CO2eq.; 48% in energy consumption; 24.4% in NOxeq.; 21.53% in PM2.5eq.; 21.2% in acidification; and, 10.4% in land use. Monte Carlo simulations confirm these results and the sensitivity of environmental benefits to the allocation methodology was also investigated, which showed that the results were only marginally sensitive to the allocation approach. This study noted higher environmental benefits than reported in roadworks literature due to alternate material and asphalt production options.
Umair Hasan; Andrew Whyte; Hamad Al Jassmi. Life cycle assessment of roadworks in United Arab Emirates: Recycled construction waste, reclaimed asphalt pavement, warm-mix asphalt and blast furnace slag use against traditional approach. Journal of Cleaner Production 2020, 257, 120531 .
AMA StyleUmair Hasan, Andrew Whyte, Hamad Al Jassmi. Life cycle assessment of roadworks in United Arab Emirates: Recycled construction waste, reclaimed asphalt pavement, warm-mix asphalt and blast furnace slag use against traditional approach. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2020; 257 ():120531.
Chicago/Turabian StyleUmair Hasan; Andrew Whyte; Hamad Al Jassmi. 2020. "Life cycle assessment of roadworks in United Arab Emirates: Recycled construction waste, reclaimed asphalt pavement, warm-mix asphalt and blast furnace slag use against traditional approach." Journal of Cleaner Production 257, no. : 120531.
Mobility is experiencing a revolution, as advanced communications, computers with big data capacities, efficient networks of sensors, and signals, are developing value-added applications such as intelligent spaces and autonomous vehicles. Another new technology that is both promising and might even be pervasive for faster, safer and more environmentally-friendly public transport (PT) is the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs). This study aims to understand the state of the current research on the artificially intelligent transportation system (ITS) and AVs through a critical evaluation of peer-reviewed literature. This study’s findings revealed that the majority of existing research (around 82% of studies) focused on AVs. Results show that AVs can potentially reduce more than 80% of pollutant emissions per mile if powered by alternate energy resources (e.g., natural gas, biofuel, electricity, hydrogen cells, etc.). Not only can private vehicle ownership be cut down by bringing in ridesharing but the average vehicle miles travelled (VMT) should also be reduced through improved PT. The main benefits of AV adoption were reported in the literature to be travel time, traffic congestion, cost and environmental factors. Findings revealed barriers such as technological uncertainties, lack of regulation, unawareness among stakeholders and privacy and security concerns, along with the fact that lack of simulation and empirical modelling data from pilot studies limit the application. AV–PT was also found to be the most sustainable strategy in dense urban areas to shift the heavy trip load from private vehicles.
Umair Hasan; Andrew Whyte; Hamad Al Jassmi. A Review of the Transformation of Road Transport Systems: Are We Ready for the Next Step in Artificially Intelligent Sustainable Transport? Applied System Innovation 2019, 3, 1 .
AMA StyleUmair Hasan, Andrew Whyte, Hamad Al Jassmi. A Review of the Transformation of Road Transport Systems: Are We Ready for the Next Step in Artificially Intelligent Sustainable Transport? Applied System Innovation. 2019; 3 (1):1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleUmair Hasan; Andrew Whyte; Hamad Al Jassmi. 2019. "A Review of the Transformation of Road Transport Systems: Are We Ready for the Next Step in Artificially Intelligent Sustainable Transport?" Applied System Innovation 3, no. 1: 1.
Design, operation, maintenance and rehabilitation of mass mobility projects require holistic environmental, energy and monetary action; transit solutions depend on public authorities’ influence over user-adoptability and sustainability. New technically advanced automated vehicles (AVs) and alternate fuel technology require consideration by planners, where such urban-settlement transportation systems are increasingly charged to be efficient, reliable, interconnected traffic pathways marked by in-out nodes able to direct people effectively. Prototype mass-transit alternative(s) choice is complex, with the infrastructure decisions largely bound to the different objectives of consumers, policy and government agencies. Three factors must be considered: user-stakeholder appraisal; and both environment; and, economic factors during the entire asset life-cycle of production, construction, operation, maintenance, rehabilitation (OM&R) and final disposal or salvage value. To assess this life-cycle impact, a new research project is presented that proposes a framework consisting of: (i) an analysis of traffic flow patterns within an intra-city settlement, addressing the suitability of any preferred alternative for direct real-world application alongside user-opinion; (ii) the life-cycle cost and environmental in/out-flows for any proposed holistic AV-based alternative(s) assessed against existing systems; and, (iii) stakeholder expert-opinion involvement through a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework assigning weightage to cost, energy and emissions. Towards this, user-preference data collected from intra-city bus passengers in Abu Dhabi notes a majority of passengers as full-time workers, in which the notion of reduced fare level and an increased network coverage was not homogenously supported, thus it is argued that municipal agency and policy-makers need to target work commutes supported by innovative solutions to enhance user-experience by reducing journey time and fluctuating service frequency around office hours. It is suggested that regional road transport system energy, cost and emission issues may be resolved by using the proposed framework that builds upon life-cycle impact strategies integrated directly into decision-analyses. It’s argued that decision-making frameworks, if they are to be successfully implemented, must allow ongoing feedback loops included in this framework.
Umair Hasan; Andrew Whyte; Hamad Al-Jassmi. A life-cycle decision-making framework to assess the need for autonomous mobility. Transportation Research Procedia 2019, 42, 32 -43.
AMA StyleUmair Hasan, Andrew Whyte, Hamad Al-Jassmi. A life-cycle decision-making framework to assess the need for autonomous mobility. Transportation Research Procedia. 2019; 42 ():32-43.
Chicago/Turabian StyleUmair Hasan; Andrew Whyte; Hamad Al-Jassmi. 2019. "A life-cycle decision-making framework to assess the need for autonomous mobility." Transportation Research Procedia 42, no. : 32-43.
Public transport can discourage individual car usage as a life-cycle asset management strategy towards carbon neutrality. An effective public transport system contributes greatly to the wider goal of a sustainable built environment, provided the critical transit system attributes are measured and addressed to (continue to) improve commuter uptake of public systems by residents living and working in local communities. Travel data from intra-city travellers can advise discrete policy recommendations based on a residential area or development’s public transport demand. Commuter segments related to travelling frequency, satisfaction from service level, and its value for money are evaluated to extract econometric models/association rules. A data mining algorithm with minimum confidence, support, interest, syntactic constraints and meaningfulness measure as inputs is designed to exploit a large set of 31 variables collected for 1,520 respondents, generating 72 models. This methodology presents an alternative to multivariate analyses to find correlations in bigger databases of categorical variables. Results here augment literature by highlighting traveller perceptions related to frequency of buses, journey time, and capacity, as a net positive effect of frequent buses operating on rapid transit routes. Policymakers can address public transport uptake through service frequency variation during peak-hours with resultant reduced car dependence apt to reduce induced life-cycle environmental burdens of buildings by altering residents’ mode choices, and a potential design change of buildings towards a public transit-based, compact, and shared space urban built environment.
Umair Hasan; Andrew Whyte; Hamad Al Jassmi. Life-cycle Asset Management in Residential Developments Building on Transport System Critical Attributes via a Data-mining Algorithm. Buildings 2018, 9, 1 .
AMA StyleUmair Hasan, Andrew Whyte, Hamad Al Jassmi. Life-cycle Asset Management in Residential Developments Building on Transport System Critical Attributes via a Data-mining Algorithm. Buildings. 2018; 9 (1):1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleUmair Hasan; Andrew Whyte; Hamad Al Jassmi. 2018. "Life-cycle Asset Management in Residential Developments Building on Transport System Critical Attributes via a Data-mining Algorithm." Buildings 9, no. 1: 1.
Life-cycle management of road network projects traditionally emphasise material production and construction stages, with less attention given to usage stage and functionality improvement. Increasingly there is a need to address: inconsistencies in cost attribute selection; adjusting for uncertainties and costs; clarifying system boundaries; data sources; functional units and regional or temporal applicability of life-cycle frameworks. The current study focuses on a critical literature review of life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) and life-cycle assessment (LCA) research published in the last decade (post 2008) towards identification of research gaps. Accurately analysing all life-cycle stages, feedback loops, future cash and resource flows, and interlinking performance with overall sustainability can aid the decision-making process towards sustainable alternatives for constructing new, or rehabilitating existing roads. This review finds that the use of recycled materials, base/sub-base stabilisers and asphalt binder replacement has the potential of energy saving (≥ 34% or 3.1 TJ), mitigating landfill disposal issues, and greenhouse gas load reduction (≥ 34.5% CDE). Lack of real world LCCA-LCA application and stakeholder prejudice against recycled material usage are addressable by better stakeholder (decision-makers and road users) engagement via a social component. The proposed enhancements identified in this study can increase LCA/LCCA attraction to policy-makers, planners and users and ultimately ensure a more sustainable asset.
Umair Hasan; Andrew Whyte; Hamad Al Jassmi. Critical review and methodological issues in integrated life-cycle analysis on road networks. Journal of Cleaner Production 2018, 206, 541 -558.
AMA StyleUmair Hasan, Andrew Whyte, Hamad Al Jassmi. Critical review and methodological issues in integrated life-cycle analysis on road networks. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2018; 206 ():541-558.
Chicago/Turabian StyleUmair Hasan; Andrew Whyte; Hamad Al Jassmi. 2018. "Critical review and methodological issues in integrated life-cycle analysis on road networks." Journal of Cleaner Production 206, no. : 541-558.
After the introduction of nanotechnology, it has been widely researched in geotechnical engineering field. This chapter aims to study these advancements with specific focus on geotechnical applications. In-situ probing of soil and rock masses through nanomaterials may help in providing better safeguards against natural hazards. The molecular dynamics and finite element methods may also be used for the modelling of the nanostructures to better understand the material behavior, causing a bottom-up approach from nano to macroscopic simulations. Nanoclays, nano-metallic oxides and fibers (carbon nanotubes) can enhance the mechanical characteristics of weak, reactive and soft soils. Nanomaterials may also be used for improving the performance of reinforced concrete pavements by enhancing the thermal, mechanical and electrical characteristics of the concrete mixes. The chapter presents a review of the current researches and practices in the nano-probing, nanoscale modelling and application of nanomaterials for soil, pavement concrete mortar and subgrade stabilization.
Umair Hasan; Amin Chegenizadeh; Hamid Nikraz. Nanotechnology Future and Present in Construction Industry. Advances in Civil and Industrial Engineering 2016, 141 -179.
AMA StyleUmair Hasan, Amin Chegenizadeh, Hamid Nikraz. Nanotechnology Future and Present in Construction Industry. Advances in Civil and Industrial Engineering. 2016; ():141-179.
Chicago/Turabian StyleUmair Hasan; Amin Chegenizadeh; Hamid Nikraz. 2016. "Nanotechnology Future and Present in Construction Industry." Advances in Civil and Industrial Engineering , no. : 141-179.