Abstract Road construction projects should attempt to reduce their large amounts of carbon emissions. The objective of this research was to develop a new method for making and selecting the compaction plan of asphalt pavement based on the compaction quality and the amount of carbon emissions. To achieve this objective, new models for the distribution of rolling sections and the corresponding operation time have been proposed in accordance with Chinese standards and engineering experience. The rolling resistance coefficient of the rollers and the energy utilization coefficient were used to quantify the compaction energy. A new model for determining the number of roller passes was established based on the energy balance between laboratory tests and on-site compaction. The feasibility of the designed compaction plan was verified through actual construction. For the new models, the predicted results are in good agreement with the observations. Additionally, for the intermediate rolling phase of a specific project, results indicate that the calculated rolling resistance coefficient of a pneumatic tire roller was approximately 0.09.