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8 - Roads and Regional Development

Noise

In recent years, highway traffic has been of increasing concern and at the same time new technology has been developed to decrease the adverse impacts of traffic noise. The level of traffic noise depends mainly on the volume and speed of the traffic as well as the amount of heavy traffic e.g. trucks.

In order to reduce the traffic noise the following strategies are often used:

Vehicle control, such as less noise generating equipment e.g. engine enclosures and good mufflers;
Land use control, with a required distance is required between the road and the closest building;
Road planning and design where a noise study is carried out in the beginning of the road planning to determine potential noise problems. If the predicted noise level exceeds the national threshold, measures need to be taken to decrease the noise level.

Examples of noise reduction measures are noise barriers, buffer zones, vegetation, noise insulation in buildings and traffic management.

A commonly applied measure is noise barriers. The barriers consist of solid constructions between 3-5 m high and the noise reduction level is about 10-15 decibels. Materials used for noise barriers are e.g. concrete, wood, masonry, metal and plastic. The restrictions with noise barriers are the lost capacity in openings in the wall, for road exists etc., and also the ineffectiveness for houses on hillsides.

The above noise measures can be applied on both new and existing roads. Additional to these are measures that can be applied during planning and design of the road. Examples are location of the road away from schools, hospitals and other noise sensitive areas; construction beneath ground level where the surrounding soil functions as a natural noise barrier; and construction with as least height differences as possible, as vehicles going uphill create more noise.