In Sweden, use of industrial by-products is still hindered by concern for their long-term properties. This report describes a three-year research project aiming to identify the key processes of ageing related to the usefulness of by-products in roads; investigate the consequences of these processes for technical and environmental properties of the by-products, and propose a method for accelerated ageing to predict long-term properties. The project has compared naturally aged samples of two by-products used as sub-bases in existing asphalt paved roads with samples of fresh by-products from producers' piles. Steel slag of electric arc furnace type and municipal solid waste incinerator (MSWI) bottom ash were chosen. The samples were thoroughly characterized in order to identify which ageing processes had been crucial. The working hypothesis was that ageing processes lead to changes in pH, effective particle size and mineralogy, which in turn determine leaching, stiffness and stability of the material. One of the conclusions from the project is that the test results confirmed that the pavement edge material is ageing faster than the road centre material is.