Netherlands tests recycling train for sustainable road construction
The Dutch infrastructure authority Rijkswaterstaat is using the Asphalt Recycling Train (ART) to recycle asphalt on site. The machine, which is currently in the test phase, removes worn asphalt, heats it, mixes it and rebuilds it on the road.
Crushed stone, sand, gravel and petroleum-based bitumen in asphalt roads are the same materials that make up new roads. The only difference is that the asphalt has already been heated and laid.
For this reason, Dutch officials from the Rijkswaterstaat infrastructure agency in Utrecht, part of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, have invested in the Asphalt Recycling Train (ART or Asphalt Recycling Train). This is a vehicle-like machine that reuses old roads on site instead of tearing them up and disposing of them and then using new materials and thus emitting more carbon. This allows new asphalt to be laid in the same place.
“With the ART, we can renew roads in a far more sustainable way,” Fredy Sierra-Fernandez, who is developing the ART at the ministry, is quoted as saying in a press release. “At the moment, we are testing a single machine to see how it performs in practice.”
ART loosens the worn surface layer of roads, heats the old asphalt, picks up the melted material, stirs and mixes it and then applies the renewed asphalt back onto the road. The machine also compacts the road to create a smooth surface.
Fernandez is now investigating how the roads behave after this process. Since June and from October last year, a provincial road in Gelderland in the east of the Netherlands and a section of the A2 highway have been monitored after the ART was used there.
The road in Gelderland is in good condition. The section of the A2 highway is somewhat more worn, but still adequate. “We will continue until we are 100 percent satisfied,” says Fernandez. Tests in other regions are planned for April and May 2025.
The Dutch government hopes to have three or four ARTs in operation across the country by 2030 to create a circular economy for asphalt.
The ART was awarded the InfraTech Innovatieprijs 2025.