Virginia Green Highway Initiative

is a partnership between: VTTI; Virginia Tech's Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, College of Engineering, and Office of the Vice President for Research; and the Virginia Department of Transportation (Virginia Transportation Research Council). VGHI's main goals are as follows:

• Create a comprehensive program of innovative approaches to increase energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions in the ground transportation domain.
• Propel Virginia to the forefront of the green energy revolution in one of the largest areas of potential benefit.
• Exploration of technologies, methods, and policies that will minimize the negative impacts on Virginia ecosystems associated with ground transportation.

Targeted Research Areas

Energy Utilization

Transportation is fueled predominantly by fossil sources and accounts for approximately 28% of the total energy used, and 33% of the total anthropogenic carbon emissions produced in the U.S. Modest advances in optimizing energy utilization for transportation will therefore have a major impact on energy source requirements and direct environmental impact on emissions of carbon and other pollutants. Targeted research areas include adaptive, high efficiency lighting; energy harvesting for powering remote infrastructure; vehicle efficiency improvements; and others.

Direct Environmental Impact

Transportation activities have widespread effects on nearby ecosystems. Direct emission of pollutants from vehicles as gases from tailpipes and liquids as leakage are recognized as having the most profound impact although particulates of carbon black, lead, and other contaminants are found in higher concentrations near roadways. Transportation may also affect nearby flora and fauna as air- and water-borne emissions migrate offsite via the atmosphere and waterways. Roadways may disrupt wildlife migration corridors and conflicts between vehicles and large animals frequently result in property damage and injury and/or death. Nuisance issues such as noise, odors, and introduction of invasive species are also recognized impacts.

Targeted research areas include:

• Construction of treatment wetlands and inclusion of vegetative buffers for treatment of storm water runoff
• Wildlife detection and warning systems
• Use of vegetative buffers for treatment of air emissions and noise abatement
• Sub-pavement water treatment cells
• Resource Utilization

Large quantities of material resources have been invested to support the transportation infrastructure and the vehicles that travel it. Sensible initial use and reuse of these materials as well as identification and utilization of alternative materials is a key element of transportation sustainability. Life cycle assessment of products used to build and maintain infrastructure and vehicles can be employed to determine the actual costs associated with their manufacture, use, and ultimate disposal. Once these costs are known for traditional and alternatives products, more sustainable, and in many cases, less expensive solutions can be found.

Targeted research areas include:

• Minimization of embodied energy in infrastructure and vehicles
• On-site pavement recycling
• Alternative roadside plantings for maintenance minimization
• Use of regionally available waste materials for construction alternatives, and others.
• Telematic Applications

Ongoing technological developments will allow timely and secure communication between vehicles, nearby infrastructure, and other mobile wireless devices, collectively. Each device connected acts as a node on the network through which data may be shared. This combined application of telemetry and informatics (or telematics) is also known as VII, V2V, or more recently as IntellidriveSM. This real-time sharing of both large central and smaller local datasets provides for numerous sustainability applications.

Targeted research areas include:

• Travel route optimization for decreased congestion, travel time, and resource usage
• Remote monitoring of vehicle efficiency aspects for driver notification and resource utilization improvement and emission reduction
• Intelligent parking systems which provide motorists with the information needed to minimize the time and resources required to find a parking space