Future impact of road and railway noise
conference paper
An exploratory study bas been undertaken to put into perspective future impact of road and railway noise until 2050 in The Netherlands, taking into account potential economic and mobitity growth, noise policy and legislation, demography and technical progress. Estimates were made of average noise levels and numbers of annoyed and sleep disturbed people for typical road and railway situations, for three mobility growth scenarios, strong, medium and low. Simplified models were used to make these estimates. The effects of policy instruments such as national noise legislation including continued application of noise abatement measures (barriers, quiet roads/tracks and dwelling insulation), European noise limits for vehicles and technical progress were assessed. It was found that the potential noise impact until 2050 shows a wide range, depending strongly on the growth scenario, policy choices and EU noise legistation. In the strongest mobility growth scenario and with continued noise legislation, an increase in numbers of annoyed and sleep disturbed people is forecast at around 25% in 2050. Significant reductions in numbers of affected people are forecast only if current regulation is continued, vehicle noise levels decrease further and mobility and population grows little. An effective noise policy at European level and widespread use of quieter vehicles and infrastructure will be required to achieve this even in the low growth scenario.
TNO Identifier
526271
Publisher
European Acoustical association
Source title
Proceedings 10th European Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering, EuroNoise2015, 31 May - 3 June, Maastricht, The Netherlands
Pages
2613-2618