They definitely tear-up the asphalt. I don't use them, but a lot of people here do in the winter. There's also a date at which they have to be removed or the driver will be fined.
Seems obvious that they would wear away the asphalt, but since non-studded tires just wear away the rubber instead, it's not obvious to me which alternative is actually worse.
They need to do a scientific study about it that considers both the difference in material (rubber vs asphalt) as well as potential differences in amount and particle size distribution.
I'm pretty sure Swedish engineers have studied this extensively. There's plenty of streets in the cities that ban studded tires, and there's harsh fines if you use studded tires outside of winter.
Banning studded tires because they're obviously worse from the perspective of a highway maintenance engineer who wants to minimize repaving costs is one thing.
Banning them because they're worse than regular tires specifically in terms of dust generated isn't the same thing, and (as a traffic engineer myself) I'm not sure that specific issue has been studied all that much.
Think of it this way: consider all the different possible combinations of road surface and wheel material, and the amount of dust (ablated from the wheel or from the road) they might generate: knobby tires on dirt, slick tires on asphalt, studded tires on snow, every combination of the above, et cetera. I don't know what the contours of that graph would look like. If you think about adding more and more metal to the tires (and to the road), at the limit you've got a railroad and the amount of dust generated would hit a minimum. But what's the shape of the metal content vs. dust curve from "high-mileage/low rolling resistance tire" through "studded snow tire" to "train wheel," and how does it vary depending on surface? I'd be surprised if anybody has rigorously tried to answer that question. It feels like the kind of research that would put somebody in the running for an Ig Nobel Prize, to me.
I'm pretty sure Swedish engineers have studied this extensively. There's plenty of streets in the cities that ban studded tires, and there's harsh fines if you use studded tires outside of winter.
That is at least the reasons for how studs are regulated i Norway. Regions with milder winter climate have fees for studs. Instead most vehicles uses studless winter tires during winter. The exeption being mostly transport and construction vehicles.
I learned recently when looking for new winter tyres for it car that there are three-ish classifications for winter tyres: unstudded, studded, Nordics.
You will end up in a ditch without studded tyres here. In the winters we'll have a constant decimeter of ice on the pavements. The busy roads will have two tyre tracks between a 5-10 cm thick layer of ice and snow, which looks to lead to asphalt. But no, it's the absolutely most slippery ice you will ever come across.
The city buses stopped using studded tyres a couple of years ago for environmental reasons. You almost feel shame hitting the stop button, because the driver has to slow down well before the stop and takes a good minute for it to get slide up to speed again