Tarmac tyre trial on UK motorway

Highways England is carrying out trials of rubberised asphalt on a busy stretch of UK motorway. A section of the M1 near the city of Leicester has been repaved by contractor Tarmac, using a special asphalt mix containing crumb rubber from recycled motor vehicle tyres. Tarmac has developed the mix specially to meet tough requirements from Highways England. This trial will determine how the stretch of highway, located between junction 22 and junction 23, behaves in terms of running wear, skid resistance and
August 7, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

8100 Highways England is carrying out trials of rubberised asphalt on a busy stretch of UK motorway. A section of the M1 near the city of Leicester has been repaved by contractor 2399 Tarmac, using a special asphalt mix containing crumb rubber from recycled motor vehicle tyres. Tarmac has developed the mix specially to meet tough requirements from Highways England.

This trial will determine how the stretch of highway, located between junction 22 and junction 23, behaves in terms of running wear, skid resistance and resistance to changes in temperature. The trial has been funded by Highways England to see whether crumb rubber from tyres can help provide a sustainable solution for road construction. Waste tyres from vehicles currently take up enormous space in landfill and provide a major concern with regard to fire safety and pollution. Being able to reuse the rubber from vehicle tyres in asphalt mixes would deliver an important solution for sustainable road construction and transport, as well as reducing waste disposal needs and the risk of fire or pollution.

Crumb rubber has been used extensively in asphalt mixes around the world, most notably in the Western US states of Arizona and New Mexico.

Around 40 million waste tyres from vehicles are produced/year in the UK and over 500,000 disused tyres are shipped out of the UK each year to be landfill. However, EU rules ban the disposal of tyres in landfill sites so these scrap tyres instead are transported to the Middle East and Asia. There are over seven million tyres filling a site in Kuwait.

Tarmac estimates that, depending on the thickness of the surface layers, up to 750 waste tyres/km of road could be used with the material.

Asphalt milling, paving & compaction

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Cost-saving compact twin layer asphalt paving
    February 28, 2012
    Twin-layer paving offers high quality, long lasting road surfaces to be constructed. Paver manufacturer Dynapac is one of the pioneers of the twin-layer paving technique, which it calls Compactasphalt. According to Dynapac this method offers major benefits to contractors and clients alike as roads surfaced using this technique last longer and are cheaper to maintain. To ensure contractors have maximum utilisation of their machines, Dynapac offers a modular paver system that can be operated using the convent
    Read More
  • Efficient asset management to trim maintenance budgets
    January 22, 2014
    Transport infrastructure is taken for granted in many, if not most, developed countries. This has resulted in a shortage of investment in maintenance, posing potential long term cost issues. In many developing nations transport networks are expanding fast, but insufficient thought is also being given to how these will be maintained.
    Read More
  • Cost effective road maintenance
    February 7, 2012
    Highway maintenance and repair is an easy target for cuts in highway budgets, but there are cost-effective measures that can be adopted as Patrick Smith reports
    Read More
  • Researchers trial 3D printing for both concrete and asphalt roads
    February 27, 2019
    Automated road repairs, using 3D printing, could save money and vastly reduce disruption, and researchers are already showing it’s possible - Kristina Smith reports It’s the middle of the night, and in the street below a team is busy carrying out repairs to the road surface. But there isn’t a human in sight. A road repair drone has landed at the site of a crack and a 3D asphalt printer is now busy filling in that crack. A group of traffic cone drones have positioned themselves around the repair location
    Read More

Highlighted Content