Using a Thematic Framework to Compare Sustainability Rating Systems Applicable to Transportation Projects

Abstract

In line with current trends of measuring the sustainability in built environments, there has been an increasing interest in the environmental assessments of green transportation projects. As a result, a number of environmental assessment tools are used, or are being developed to evaluate the sustainability level of a transportation project. Thus, the use of quantitative environmental assessment tools for transportation projects is expected to increase, making it relevant to ascertain their status of development process. This study aims to apply a unified thematic framework to compare the sustainability rating systems for transportation projects. In an effort to do so, this paper describes and compares various different tools used for the quantitative environmental assessment of transportation projects. Selected here are four quantitative assessment tools, which measure the sustainability of a transportation project or program in the United States over life cycle. The purpose of this paper is to provide all thresholds, such as planners, contractors, state officials, and environmentalists, with a better picture of the situation and indicate the benefits and shortcomings of the tools, but not to prioritize the four different tools to determine which the best system is.