A preliminary multicriteria acoustic and environmental screening of low-noise pavements

Low-noise pavements (LNPs) are widely used as source-oriented mitigation measures for road traffic noise, but their selection increasingly requires balancing acoustic performance with environmental and material-related criteria. This study proposes a preliminary multicriteria acoustic and environmental screening approach for the assessment of LNPs, based on data collected from 12 pavement sections built on two urban roads in Tuscany (Italy). Acoustic performance was evaluated using both the Close-Proximity (CPX) method and an unattended urban Statistical Pass-By approach (U-SPB). To improve comparability across sites and overcome the limitations of strict local before/after comparisons, a virtual acoustic reference pavement was defined from ante-operam measurements and used as a common baseline for both indicators. The acoustic performance was then expressed through differential indicators relative to the virtual reference and combined with non-acoustic indicators, namely thermal energy saving during production, crumb rubber content, and reclaimed asphalt pavement content. The proposed approach enables a consistent comparison of pavements with different structural and material characteristics, while preserving the complementary information provided by source-oriented and roadside acoustic indicators. The case study results confirm the general coherence between CPX- and U-SPB-based evaluations, while also highlighting the influence of local urban configurations on roadside measurements. The resulting scoring approach is intended as a preliminary comparative screening tool rather than as a complete decision-support framework, and its current scope is limited by the lack of homogeneous quantitative data on durability and cost, which should be included in future developments.