PROCEEDINGS of the23rd International Congress on Acoustics
9 to 13 September 2019 in Aachen, Germany

New trends in noise abatement
Hans Bögli1, Urs Walker1; René Weinandy2;
1

Federal Office for the Environment, Switzerland
2

German Environment Agency, Germany

ABSTRACTThe classic noise abatement approach consisted of evaluating the problem by establishing noise maps,evaluating noise abatement measures in form of action plans and keeping the public informed of the progresswith a regular monitoring. At least this has been the procedure utilized in Switzerland over the last forty years
and the EU follows basically the same procedure. This approach is driven by the belief that there are someefficient technical or constructive measures available to reduce noise emissions. Moreover, it was expectedthat low-noise innovations would inevitably solve the problem and noise as an environmental burden would
eventually disappear from the agenda.
However, new trends and developments have made noise abatement aiming at moving targets and facing new
battlefields of conflicts. These changes can be attributed to evolution of attitude of human beings,
social-demographic changes and progresses in the techno-economical environment. In answer to thesedevelopments, the strategy of noise abatement has to be adapted in order to cope with the new challenges.
This adaptation should ensure that the type of noise abatement measures are less "end-of-pipe" such as noisebarriers or protection windows, but measures at source based on holistic concepts that integrate all relevant
aspects of modern life.
Keywords: noise abatement, developments, social-demographic changes, techno-economic progress

1. INTRODUCTION
Noise as a public health issue has become of growing concern in the European Union and it has
been recognize as one of the most dominant environmental nuisance. There are more than 100 million
people affected by road traffic noise in western Europe (1). Every year noise causes the loss of morethen 1.6 million healthy years of life. Estimates (2) of the social costs of environmental noise arevalued in the range of EUR 40 billion every year. It is also proved that traffic noise is especiallyharmful to vulnerable groups, such as children, the elderly and the poor. Although noise abatement
strategies with regulations, monitoring procedures and action plans have been introduced, noiseexposure is still growing.

2. NOISE ABATEMENT STRATEGIESThe European response to the growing problem of noise exposure started with the Green Paper ofnoise abatement (3)) in the mid-nineties. Since then, the EU has undertaken remarkable efforts fordeveloping regulations, such as Environmental Noise Directive 2002/49/EC (END) (4), the Outdoor
Noise Directive 2000/14/EC (OND) (5) and the Balanced Approach Regulation 598/2014 (6).
Moreover, there are various national regulations that control noise management on a local basis. Inparallel with the consolidation of EU-regulations, WHO issued a number of important publications on
scientific evidence of the impact of noise exposure on the population. Among them are the Night noise
guidelines for Europe (7), the Burden of disease from environmental noise (8) and the Environmental
Noise Guidelines for the European Region (1).
The fundamental noise abatement policy is stipulated in the END, focusing on the most dominant
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Hans.boegli@bafu.admin.ch, urs.walker@bafu.admin.chrene.weinandy@uba.detraffic noise sources such as roads, railway lines and airports as well as industrial sites. Monitoring ofnoise exposure is carried out by means of the indicators Lden and L night and action plans have to beestablished in order to reverse the tendency of growing community noise and to protect thepopulation's health. Noise reducing measures have to be taken at source or at the sound propagation
path as priority and sound insulation at the dwellings of noise exposed people is only second choice.
Further important abatement rules are laid down in the Balanced Approach Regulation to protect thepopulation from aircraft noise. Apart from promoting technical reductions of aircraft noise, thisregulation specifies the principle of land-use planning and management and noise abatement
operational procedures, including operating restrictions such as night flight ban. It is recommended toapply cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the total economic welfare effects of noise abatement measures.
There are no pan-European noise exposure limit values that trigger remediation measures, because
the EU has left this task to the member states, knowing that a general agreement would be very
difficult to achieve. Also the type of measures in the action plan to reduce noise is left to the memberstates, as it is supposed that the local players (noise polluters, people exposed and authorities) canbetter manage these problems than any detailed European regulation.
Further regulations regard noise emission values for type approval of cars, trucks and motorbikes,
as well as other outdoor equipment. The emission limit values, however, are not very ambitious in thatthey only reflect the lower end of the technological development. This is because the principal driverbehind these regulations is the aim of eliminating technical obstacles in trade. The emission limit
values are therefore adapted to the weakest or - regarding car technologies - the strongest and loudest
categories.
The effort of Europe in tackling the noise problem is remarkable and to great extend efficient andeffective, as was proved in the regulatory fitness check (9) of the END. The analysis revealed that thedirective led to a common approach to noise management and a positive contribution to reducing noise,
while the overall cost-benefit ratio is in the outstanding range of 1:29. However, what is a goodmeasure today, does not have to be so in the future and it seems fair enough to ask the question,
whether the present noise abatement strategy is appropriate for new trends and developments.

3. Mega-trends for the acoustic future
As a first step to determine the most important future changes we looked at the so-called
megatrends, among the various trends and movements of all fields in life. The term "megatrends"
refers to a long-term social, economic, political and technological change that structurally influencesociety, the economy, politics and technology over several decades. These megatrends are then thebasis for developing hypothesis for the future, which in turn can be used to define needs and actions forthe upcoming noise abatement strategy (figure 1).

Figure 1 – Development of action plans of noise abatement measures in the future.
For this purpose a study (10) was carried out in order to evaluate the trends, the megatrends and therelevance of these megatrends with regard to the future acoustic landscape. The framework for thelong-term analysis was set to 2050, which represents a horizon that extends beyond the normal3597

political and official planning and decision-making cycles. As a result there were identified eightnoise-relevant megatrends that have an impact to the acoustic world in the future. These megatrends
are:x
Demographic development will lead to more people and more activities and eventually to morenoise.
xTechnological progress will lead to more vehicles and devices and eventually to more noise, but
might also lead to less noisy technologies.

x

Globalisation will lead to less local solutions with a loss of autonomy in influencing one's life
conditions, leading to a 24-hours society with other sleep, rest and recreation habits.

x

Deterioration of ecological situation will overload the system and put other priorities before aquiet environment.

x

Urbanisation leads to higher population densities with more traffic and noise and more stress.

x

Shift of economic structure to information society leads to less conventional noise problems, butalso to changes in the needs of working and resting times.

x

Increasing complexity, interconnection and mobility leads to overloading the classictransportation and communication channels with the need for more time slots (24 -hourssociety).

x

Growing importance of the health and sustainability lifestyle leads to increased importance ofhealth and environmental topics, and quietness is part of them.

Social and political studies are always based on numerous assumptions and implicit models
concerning trends and interconnectedness. These megatrends and their possible consequences are
therefore not necessarily deduced in a strictly logical manner and one could also come to otherconclusions than those shown above. Nevertheless, the outcome is worth developing the hypothesis
somewhat further, including possible actions in order to be prepared for the future challenges in noiseabatement.

4. Quo Vadis noise abatement?
In view of the upcoming development indicated by the above depicted noise relevant megatrends, anumber of hypotheses of challenges (Figure 2) in four domains have been formulated: noise sources,
recreation areas, settlements and people. On the basis of theses hypothesis there have been proposed anumber of possible responses or action plans in order to tackle these challenges. These measures are
not complete, but intended to serve as basis for discussion and provoke responses and new ideas. Manyof them are already known and have been proposed. e.g. in the final report (11) of the EPA-network'sInterest Group on Noise Abatement (IGNA).

Figure 2 – Hypothesis of future challenges in four domains"Sources", "Areas", "Settlements" and "People".
Sources: Mobility and automation continue to increase and noise will increase. New technologies

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might lead to a reduction of technical noise at source, but this progress has to be demanded andpromoted. Action plans should aim at taming mobility by making use of optimizing measure such as
smaller and less noisy cars and introducing driving guidance systems. What's more, substitution
measures should be encouraged such as promoting telecommunication and Home-office solutions
instead of physical presence in offices and meeting places. A key technology for low-noise traffic iselectro-mobility (but without AVAS) as well as low-noise tyres and road surface. Buying quiet vehicles
and devices should be facilitated by introducing noise labels for vehicles and devices, but also bystimulating research in low-noise technologies. Classic noise abatement measures such as noisebarriers, speed limits and other operational optimisations will still be needed.
Areas: Quiet areas will be under pressure because of the increase of population, infrastructure andsettlements, but also because of overuse. Shift from outdoor to indoor activities might make natural
recreation areas less valuable for some part of the population. Action plans should aim at preserving
recreation areas and maintaining them quiet, especially in the vicinity of settlements. What's more,citizens should be made aware of the positive effects of natural and quiet areas on health and aspects ofnoise and quietness should be integrated from the very beginning into spatial and settlement planning.
Settlements: Housing will become denser, especially in urban centres, and noise from traffic,
house automation and devices will increase. Everyday noise and noise from recreation will gain in
importance, and noise-related conflicts among neighbours will become more frequent. Action plans
should complement good sound insulation of housing (external and internal) with energy and climate
aspects. In addition, there should be implemented automatic regulations of house-insulation andventilation based on customs of inhabitants (internal) and linked with external noise. Close tosettlements there should be made available easy accessible quiet outdoor spaces for recreation andcompensation. Moreover, mediation processes should be introduced into planning and execution of
noisy installation close to settlements.
People: Technological, demographic and social changes endanger the common understanding ofrest and activity periods, favouring a 24-hours society, where biophonic sound is more and more
suppressed by technophonic sound. But quietness as part of health will become more important. Actionplans should sensitize the population of the importance of quietness and its positive effects on health.
Noise abatement should be anchored deeper into public health strategies and political discussions
should be promoted in order to reach consensus regarding time and space for activities and/orrecovery.

5. Conclusions
New trends and developments have made noise abatement aiming at moving targets. In answer tothese developments, the strategy of noise abatement has to be adapted in order to cope with the newchallenges. Classic noise abatement measures will still be necessary in the future, but there are needed
new holistic concepts that integrate all relevant aspects of life. The EPA-Network’s Interest Group ofNoise Abatement (IGNA) is working on that.

REFERENCES
1. WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region (WHO 2018).
2. Eelco den Boer, Arno Schroten, Traffic noise reduction in Europe - Health effects, social costs andtechnical and policy options to reduce road and rail traffic noise, CE Delft, the Netherlands, 2007.
3. Future noise policy, Green Paper, European Commission 1996.
4. Directive 2002/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 June 2002 relating to theassessment and management of environmental noise.
5. Directive 2000/14/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 May 2000 on theapproximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the noise emission in the environment by3599

equipment for use outdoors.
6. Regulation (EU) No 598/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on theestablishment of rules and procedures with regard to the introduction of noise-related operating
restrictions at Union airports within a Balanced Approach and repealing Directive 2002/30/EC.
7. WHO Night noise guidelines for Europe (WHO 2009).
8. WHO Burden of disease from environmental noise. Quantification of healthy life years lost in Europe(WHO 2011).
9. Evaluation of Directive 2002/49/EC Relating to the Assessment and Management of Environmental
Noise, Final Report, European Commission 2016.
10. Die Zukunft der akustischen Landschaft Schweiz – eine Analyse von langfristigen Megatrends (Thefuture of Switzerland’s acoustic landscape, an analysis of long-term megatrends), by order of BAFU,Walker A. M., Steiner T., Cachelin J., Höin R., Keller P., 2012
11. Final report of the Interest Group of Traffic Noise Abatement. Interest Group on Traffic NoiseAbatement of the EPA Network (IGNA-EPA), van Blokland G, Peeters B., February 2016.

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