An increase in albedo indeed can reduce the pavement surface temperature and thus might help mitigate the surface, near-surface and atmospheric heat island effects, and potentially improve outdoor thermal comfort, and reduce building cooling energy use during hot periods, depending on the characteristics of the location and the overall urban area (see the list of additional factors in the Introduction). While the urban heat island effect is a large concern for many cities in hot climates, and of course is a great concern in the summer, winter effects of pavement albedo and temperature are also important to consider. The reduced temperature during winter might increase the outdoor thermal discomfort and building energy use for heating for some climates and locations. Building energy use is also highly dependent on whether air conditioners are widely used. There is a chance that this penalty (i.e. colder pavements) in winter might outweigh the benefits gained in summer in some regions. This study looked at pavement surface temperature with focus on the effects of solar radiation and albedo. It must be noted that near-surface temperature is also influenced by wind speed, with higher wind speeds reducing near-surface temperatures. However, compared to solar radiation the effect of wind speed would be much smaller. The effect of wind speed was assumed identical for each case and not explicitly included in the simple model of cooling effect proposed in this study. For developing a more comprehensive model, however, the wind speed can be included as well as thermal proprieties of pavement materials (i.e. thermal conductivity and heat capacity, see reference [34] for the measurement method).