MONITORING AND PREDICTING RAILWAY NOISE AND ITS LARGE-SCALE IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT; A TOOL FOR POLICY-MAKERS

✍ Scribed by G. Janssen

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 276 KB
• Volume: 193
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-460X
• DOI: 10.1006/jsvi.1996.0265

✦ Synopsis

The social pressure to decrease noise nuisance caused by rail transport lines is growing rapidly. The solutions realized by the railway companies are often only effective locally and are specified without taking note of future European transport flows. In order to evolve their new policy the Dutch Railway company (NS) is developing a special purpose Geographical Information System. By means of this system it is possible to calculate the acoustic consequences of different future plans on a national or international scale. The input parameters of the system are the number of trains to be expected on the different lines, train speeds, train types, the noise nuisance law concerned, and the amount of sound reduction on specific trains and tracks. The acoustic consequences are quantified either as costs for noise barriers and sound-insulating measures in houses or as the area or number of people living within one specific equal noise level contour. The system gives policy-makers insight into the effects of certain sound reduction measures, of changes in the noise nuisance law and future transport flows. Results of studies show that the system can be a useful aid when making choices between investing in certain acoustic measures to be taken at the source or taking measures along the propagation path. In addition the system is useful as a monitoring system. Thus it is possible to quantify the effects of policy implementation and independent developments.