EUROPEAN COMMISSION Brussels, 30.3.2017 COM(2017) 151 final REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL On the Implementation of the Environmental Noise Directive in accordance with Article 11 of Directive 2002/49/EC



REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL On the Implementation of the Environmental Noise Directive in accordance with Article 11 of Directive 2002/49/EC 1. Introduction Article 11 of the Environmental Noise Directive (hereinafter "the Directive") provides for an implementation report to be prepared by the European Commission every 5 years. In addition to addressing the implementation, the Directive requires that this report should also include a review of the acoustic environment, goals and measures for the reduction of environmental noise (legislation at source), and assess the need for further Community actions. This second implementation report reviews the situation since the publication of the first report, and also represents the action plan following the evaluation of the Directive, which took place in 2016 under the Commission's Regulatory Fitness and Performance (REFIT) programme. It should therefore be read in conjunction with the respective supporting study and Staff Working Document. Noise pollution continues to constitute a major environmental health problem in Europe. Scientific evidence shows that prolonged exposure to high levels of noise pollution can lead to serious health effects in areas controlled by the human endocrine system and by the brain, such as cardiovascular diseases, sleep disturbance and annoyance (a feeling of discomfort affecting general well-being). According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), noise pollution leads to a disease burden that is second only to air pollution among the environment-related causes in Europe. Environment-related pressures and risks to health and well-being are also at the heart of citizens' preoccupations, and the Union has a role to play in safeguarding its citizens from such pressures and risks, also making the Union's cities more sustainable. A goal to reduce the number of people harmfully affected by environmental noise – to be reported according to Article 11 (2) of the Directive - has been set in the 7th Environment Action Programme. For this, innovative solutions are needed and will contribute to the achievement of the Commission's general priority No. 1: A New Boost for Jobs, Growth and Investment. At EU level, Directive 2002/49/EC relating to the assessment and management of environmental noise is the key legislative instrument for protecting citizens from excessive noise pollution caused by road, rail and airport traffic, as well as by large industrial installations. Its purpose is twofold: (1) to define a common approach intended to avoid, prevent or reduce the harmful effects of environmental noise and (2) to provide a basis for developing measures to reduce noise emitted by the major sources. 2. The acoustic environment quality in the EU and the impact on public health An assessment of the exposure of European citizens to noise was carried out by the EEA for the European Union Member States, covering 467 agglomerations (where roads, railways, airports and industrial installations are considered), 86 major airports as well as 186 600 km of major roads and 44 320 km of major railways outside agglomerations. As reporting by Member States is still incomplete, missing data have been filled using a special gap-filling methodology. Figure 1 shows the results, separately for inside and outside agglomerations. Figure 1: Number of people exposed to environmental noise in Europe > 55 dB Lden in the 28 EU Member States, 2012, inside and outside agglomerations. Road traffic noise, both inside and outside agglomerations, remains the most dominant source affecting human exposure above the reporting levels defined by the Directive, with an estimated total (inside and outside agglomerations) of around 100 million people (nearly 70 million inside and 30 million outside agglomerations) being exposed to road traffic noise above 55 dB Lden. Railways are the second most important noise source with a total of more than 18 million people (around 10 million inside and 8 million outside agglomerations) exposed above 55 dB Lden, followed by aircraft noise with a total of nearly 4 million people (nearly 3 million inside and 1 million outside agglomerations) exposed above 55 dB Lden. Industrial noise within urban areas exposes around 1 million people to noise levels above 55 dB Lden. This exposure data implies that 14,1 million adults are severely annoyed by environmental noise, 5,9 million adults are highly sleep disturbed, 69 000 hospital admissions and 15 900 cases of premature mortality occur annually, due to environmental noise. This data is limited to agglomerations, roads, railways and airports falling under the scope of the Directive. The total exposure and health impacts are therefore even higher. 3. The implementation of the Directive Implementation of the Directive by Member States is progressing but varies significantly, depending on Member States' choice of ambition level, the resources allocated to implementation, and whether implementation is tasked to more centralised or more local, decentralised authorities. In summary: Transposition into national legislation has been done correctly in all 28 Member States, either through the adoption of new implementing regulations or through adjustments to existing legislation. No significant problems were identified in the designation of major roads, major railways, major airports and agglomerations that fall within the scope of the Directive. However, in some Member States, practical challenges in producing noise maps persist between national bodies and local authorities. The Directive does not set any source-specific limit values at an EU level, but leaves Member States free to establish national limit values if they wish to do so. Such values have been set in 21 Member States, and non-binding targets in a further four Member States. However, so far there has been limited evidence of their effective enforcement.

For the preparation of strategic noise maps, Member States have used the indicators required by the Directive. Member States have however also used other national noise indicators for special cases, as provided for by Article 5(2) of the Directive. Data has not been comparable between reporting rounds and countries, as Member States may still use adapted national methods to assess noise. This will be considerably improved by the newly developed common methods which will lead to comparable data once their use is compulsory from 2018 onwards. More than 20% of the required noise maps, and around 50% of the action plans for the current five-year reporting cycle, have not yet been reported. Implementation of the Directive is therefore significantly delayed, as Member States were required to supply these by 2012 and 2013, respectively. An overview of data completeness is provided in Table 1 below. Table 1: Completeness of reporting for current round of noise mapping and action planning Entity In agglomerations Outside agglomerations Road noise Railway noise Aircraft noise Industry noise Major roads Major railways Major airports Noise maps completed 78% 75% 52% 69% 79% 73% 75% Action plans completed 49% 47% (average) 41% (average) 43% Source: Report of a service contract available at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/noise/evaluation_en.htm As Member States have drawn up nearly 80 % of the required noise maps – and made them available through different website information portals – a direct output of the Directive's implementation remains that we now have a much clearer understanding of the extent of the noise problem in the EU. Despite availability of this information, citizens are not always aware of the noise situation and their related health effects. Approaches to action planning diverge between Member States. This is reflected in the types of noise reduction measures identified, the balance between expenditure / non-expenditure measures and the extent to which the plans are only strategic or also have an operational focus. In addition, the delay in drawing up action plans indicates that many Member States have not taken steps to address noise pollution. The reasons for this vary: for instance in agglomerations, competent authorities responsible for developing the action plans may not have strategic or budgetary decision-making powers to determine whether measures included in the action plan are realistic, feasible and can be funded. The quality and quantity of the consultation processes of draft action plans that have been undertaken by Member States also vary. NGOs that have participated in consultations stated that although action plans often include a summary of the consultation responses, it is often unclear how these responses have been taken into account in the plans. The overriding reasons for these significant implementation delays include the lack of priority given to the issue at the national/local level when deciding on the allocation of limited human and financial resources. More specifically for noise mapping, challenges have included a lack of centralised and consistent input data, lack of effective coordination among the different competent authorities responsible for implementing the Directive and a lack of comparability of the resulting noise maps across jurisdictions. With regard to action-planning, delays were caused by knock-on effects from the delays in noise-mapping (as action plans need to be based on noise maps) and the short period given between the deadline for the preparation of noise maps and that for action plans (12 months). Overall, evidence shows that Member States with a highly decentralised approach to implementation have particularly struggled to enforce the timely implementation of the Directive's measures on their authorities. While many Member States have made progress in developing definitions of quiet areas (in agglomerations and open country) and in defining selection criteria to designate them, only 13 Member States have to date designated any quiet areas. A possible reason for this is the perceived uncertainty whether the process could be reversed in future and also whether a designated quiet area could be subject to legal restrictions. In those Member States, however, where quiet areas have been designated, their number has increased considerably between the first and the second reporting round (2007 – 2012). To facilitate the designation of quiet areas, Member States have asked the Commission to further develop practical guidance. An important implementation challenge was the broadened scope of the Directive (see Table 2) and the considerably increased number of entities for which noise maps and action plans had to be produced (e.g. the number of agglomerations covered increased from 176 to 467). The change of scope also makes it difficult to compare data completeness between rounds. Table 2: Number of entities covered by the Environmental Noise Directive in reporting rounds 1 and 2 Type of entity Reporting round 1 (2005-2009) Reporting round 2 (2010-2014) and subsequent rounds Agglomerations 176 (> 250,000 inhabitants) 467 (> 100,000 inhabitants) Major airports 73 (> 50,000 movements per year) 92 (due to increased air traffic) (> 50,000 movements per year) Major roads (km) 67,488 (> 6 million vehicle passages per year) 154,738 (> 3 million vehicle passages per year) Major railways (km) 31,576 (> 60,000 train passages per year) 72,341 (> 30,000 train passages per year) 4. The evaluation of the Directive In 2013 the Commission proposed the Directive for evaluation in the context of its Regulatory Fitness and Performance (REFIT) programme, a part of its Better Regulation agenda . In accordance with the general guidance on Better Regulation , this evaluation explores whether the Directive was, and continues to be, relevant to tackling the issue it addresses, while providing EU added value in comparison to Member State action alone. In addition, this evaluation assesses whether the Directive achieved this in an effective and efficient manner, and whether its provisions were coherent with other EU legislation. The evaluation also considers the impact of the Directive on SMEs, and the potential for simplification and reduction of administrative burdens. The evaluation covers the period from the adoption of the Environmental Noise Directive (2002) to the present day. Its scope is limited to the Environmental Noise Directive, but takes into account the interaction of the Directive with EU legislation which tackles noise emissions at their source (e.g. by regulating the noise emissions of motor vehicles), whilst not addressing this legislation in a detailed manner. The evaluation methodology included desk research which considered reporting data from the Member States and other relevant EU and national documents, as well as the latest scientific literature. Administrative costs of the Directive's implementation were reviewed and a cost-benefit analysis performed. The evaluation also involved an extensive and comprehensive consultation with competent authorities and stakeholders from all Member States through online surveys, in-depth interviews, a workshop, and an online public consultation. The Directive itself and its two objectives remain highly relevant to identified EU policy-making needs. Noise pollution continues to constitute a major environmental health problem in Europe. In order to tackle this, stakeholder feedback indicates that there is a continuing need for a common approach to the management of noise. Moreover, collecting harmonised data on EU level is important to provide a high-quality evidence base for the further development of EU noise-at-source legislation, which is necessary since local noise management measures could be ineffective without additional controls over noise emitted by the major sources of noise.