The international project HERMES focuses on emission reduction potential and management strategies for urban road system. It is a collaboration between project partners in Austria, Norway and China. New research from the HERMES project analysed 94 scientific papers dealing with the calculation of the environmental impacts of roads. It deals with the transparency, heterogeneity and hypotheses considered in the calculation of the environmental impacts of roads considered as barriers in the identification of low-carbon solutions. Based on data analysis of extracted information all barriers related to life cycle assessment method were identified and solutions were proposed. The recommendations published in the Journal of Total Environment will enable a more transparent and joint calculation of the environmental impacts of roads. This would allow the identification of solution with lower environmental impacts. HERMES is funded in the Sustainable and Liveable Cities and Urban Areas call, organized by JPI Urban Europe and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

Access the paper:
Hoxha, E., Vignisdottir, H.R., Barbieri, D.M., Wang, F., Bohne, R.A., Kristensen, T. and Passer, A., 2020. Life cycle assessment of roads: Exploring research trends and harmonization challenges. Science of the Total Environment, p.143506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143506