PURPOSES : The cooling characteristics of the asphalt mixture in a moving dump truck were analyzed using a numerical simulation method. The cooling characteristic can be used to determine the optimum transport path for minimizing the temperature drop of the asphalt mixture. METHODS : In this research, a coupled analysis of the discrete element method (DEM) with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was applied for cooling characteristic analysis of asphalt mixtures in transit. Two different transit speeds, 30 km/h and 60 km/h, were considered to evaluate the effect of speed on the temperature drop of the asphalt mixture. Velocity, pressure, and temperature contours were plotted and temperature variations were compared. RESULTS : Most of the temperature drops in the asphalt mixture were observed in the middle of the dump box in the longitudinal direction. It was confirmed that a faster speed causes a greater temperature drop for the same travel time and a slower speed causes the more temperature to reach the same travel distance as expected. CONCLUSIONS : It is concluded that the coupled analysis method can be used to quantitatively evaluate the effect of vehicle speed on temperature drop in asphalt mixtures. In addition, the method can be used to determine the optimum travel path considering environmental conditions and traffic congestion.