Road Noise from Motor Vehicles in Europe

Image via WikipediaImage by Getty Images via @daylifeProposal for a Regulation on the Sound Level of Motor Vehicles (12 gage pdf, Commission Staff Working Paper- Executive Summary of the Impact Assessment, Dec. 9, 2011)

Also discussed here: EU Would Quiet Vehicles to Benefit Public Health (Environment News Service, Dec. 12, 2011)

The focus today is on a new proposal to reduce by 25% the vehicle noise which impacts the health of almost 21 million citizens of European cities. Past efforts to accomplish this have little success because of the introduction of wider noiser tires, increasing urban traffic and the slow transition from noisy to more modern quieter vehicles- despite the advent of electric vehicles which are soundless (but represent less than 5% of the cars on the road) . The situation is summed up by this quote: "After air pollution, noise is the biggest environmental health problem in Europe".

Key Quotes:

“The European Commission Friday adopted a proposal to reduce the noise produced by cars, vans, buses, coaches, light and heavy trucks by some 25 percent over five years”

“European vehicle noise emissions limits have not changed since 1996, despite increasing traffic.. which negatively affects almost half of European citizens, around 210 million people”

“almost 67 million people (i.e. 55 % of the population living in agglomerations with more than 250 000 inhabitants) are exposed to daily road noise levels exceeding 55 dB.. Almost 21 million people (i.e. 17 % of the population living in urban agglomerations) live in areas where night-time road noise levels have detrimental effects on health”

“The exposure of people to traffic noise can be reduced in different ways: through reducing noise limits at the source, .. or through other indirect measures such as tax relief schemes for environmentally friendly investments ., standards for acquisition of quiet delivery vehicles … traffic restrictions.. rerouting and speed restrictions or noise abatement solutions (noise barriers, quiet road surfaces, façade insulation)”

"It's far cheaper to add readily-available noise reducing technology to vehicles than for cash-strapped local authorities to spend millions on noise barriers along roads. The benefits outweigh the costs by 20 to 1, so there is no excuse for inaction."

Related articles

• Health Impacts from Road Traffic and Railway Noise (pollutionfree.wordpress.com)
• The cars of the future: could they sound like this? (confused.com)
• AZ Sees Initial Results on Noise Study (myfoxphoenix.com)
• Both electric and petrol cars get louder (eta.co.uk)
• Noise blighted resident blasts transport bosses (bucksfreepress.co.uk)
• Noise Pollution (bhushanshirgaonkars.wordpress.com)
• Calgary ready to adopt sound-activated noise camera to automatically ticket loud vehicles (autoblog.com)