Overview

By 2019, the effects of climate change in Ireland had increased and could be felt across the country. The Irish Government soon declared the nation to be in a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency. To combat the climate emergency, the government set up the Climate Action Plan (CAP) 2021 which stipulates that the public sector will lead by example in delivering on Ireland’s decarbonization commitments. TII followed suit from these requirements and posted their Climate Adaption Strategy. In 2024, this was developed into a roadmap, and it was ti me to begin implementing the strategy.

TII needed a solution that could quantify the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of various treatment strategies and investment scenarios, incorporating factors like fuel efficiency, traffic patterns, and GWP emissions from construction activities and construction related traffic congestion.

Challenge

TII’s vision was to create a sustainable and environmentally responsible approach to managing Ireland’s networks. How could TII integrate an Environmental Management System (EMS) analysis seamlessly into their existing PMS configuration without disrupting their core operations?

Solution

Deighton worked closely with TII to integrate the current EMS template into the PMS configuration and created TII-specific configurations that could track GWP emissions data, assess different pavement treatment methods, and evaluate their impact on sustainability goals.

The EMS analysis evaluates each pavement segment to determine annual and total GWP output for all vehicles traveling throughout the analysis period.

Results

Deighton and TII explored all aspects of this template during the project and discovered enhancements that could be made and were subsequently implemented in TII’s model. These enhancements strengthened the EMS template and will be include in all future iterations of the template.

With their implemented EMS model, the agency can now illustrate the effects on GWP output for various alternative strategies, alternative treatments, and alternative construction programs. While EMS outputs are not the sole factor in optimization and project selection, they act as a guide helping TII chart a path forward toward pavement maintenance at established serviceability targets while working toward reducing GWP emissions.