Urban regeneration involves the integrated redevelopment of urban deprived areas, covering physical, socio-economic and environmental aspects of cities, and it is concerned with interventions on early/inner-ring suburbs and historic centers, which are under pressure from population growth and sustainable development policies. The planning and management of urban regeneration interventions usually depend on the city and regional context. Although these interventions involve multiple issues and stakeholders, common characteristics can be identified, thus appealing for a holistic vision and coordination among the various dimensions of the problem. Based on the above context, and on the experience from a large-scale urban regeneration project, this article introduces an integrated methodology to support the planning and management of urban regeneration interventions. The methodology proposes a flexible baseline that can be adapted to urban regeneration projects of different contexts and dimensions, and defines steps, the corresponding stakeholders, and the teams’ engagement, in an integrated framework to plan and oversee urban regeneration actions towards more sustainable and resilient interventions.

Climate change is already happening. It is one of the significant challenges that the planet has to face. Asphalt road pavements cover a large area of the Earth’s surface; consequently, climate change challenges can significantly affect their performance and serviceability. Thus, pavement solutions have been developed to address the problem. This paper aims to present an overview of those topics to increase awareness among transportation engineers and practitioners. First, the most significant aspects of road asphalt pavements’ materials, design and condition are presented. Second, the most relevant climate change challenges for asphalt pavements are described. Then, different pavement solutions are presented. This overview concludes that there are pavement solutions able to address climate change. These depend on local climate conditions and should be incorporated into the decision-making process in planning, design and maintenance.

Some research projects have studied full recycling of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP). Several additives have been used to rejuvenate the RAP’s aged bitumen. The authors previously studied full recycling of RAP rejuvenated with waste cooking oil (WCO). The asphalt concrete (AC) manufactured revealed good mechanical behaviour except for rutting resistance. Therefore, they decided to also include in the asphalt mixtures low density polyethylene (LDPE) from urban waste as a low-cost polymer to improve that weak point and verify if this technique was feasible and with potential as a pavement material. A laboratory plan was conceived to evaluate the mechanical performance of two rejuvenated ACs with WCO and LDPE. Stiffness, water sensitivity, resistance to rutting and fatigue cracking were evaluated. The results showed that, despite some empirical parameters usually indicated in current specifications not being met, the performance of the studied asphalt mixtures was adequate and, thus, there are good expectations about the future use of these solutions in real pavements, particularly for low and intermediate traffic levels. Based on a global analysis of the performance observed, the main conclusion was that full recycling of AC with WCO and LDPE is feasible, and the score obtained was higher than that of a conventional AC used for comparison.

The use of plastic waste as a bitumen extender added throughout the manufacturing process of asphalt concrete contributes value to that type of waste. Moreover, this type of polymer can improve some mechanical properties of asphalt concrete without weakening its workability and other mechanical characteristics too much. The study aimed to address these issues for four types of plastic waste, using different plastic contents added by the dry process and compared the results with a conventional mixture without plastic. A set of laboratory tests, such as volumetric parameter evaluation, the Marshall, gyratory compactor, and indirect tensile tests, repetitive four-point bending; and repetitive compression, assessed the workability and mechanical behavior of the studied materials. The results show that, although the addition of plastic waste reduces workability, the asphalt concrete retains satisfactory handling conditions. By adding plastic waste, the asphalt concrete becomes more elastic, and the stiffness values of the material are adequate to apply the material in a pavement surface layer. The resistance to fatigue cracking was at a suitable level for the asphalt mixtures studied. Adding the plastic waste in the study generally improved resistance to permanent deformation, although the performance was plastic type and content dependent.