Factors influencing PM10 emissions from road pavement wear

Accelerated pavement wear is one of the major environmental disadvantages of studded tyres in northern regions and results in increased levels of PM10. Measurements of PM10 in a road simulator hall have been used to study the influence of pavement properties, tyre type and vehicle speed on pavement wear. The test set-up included three different pavements (one granite and two quartzite with different aggregate sizes), three different tyre types (studded, non-studded, and summer tyres) and different speeds (30–70 km h−1). The results show that the granite pavement was more prone to PM10 production compared to the quartzite pavements. Studded winter tyres yield tens of times higher PM10 concentrations compared to non-studded winter tyres. Wear from summer tyres was negligible in comparison. It was also shown that wear is strongly dependent on speed; every 10 km h−1 increase yielded an increase of the PM10 concentration of 680 μg m−3 in one of the simulator experiments.