How traffic noise captured our cities and how to regain our cities

Henk Wolfert1

1 DCMR EPA, Schiedam, The Netherlands, Email: henk.wolfert@dcmr.nl

Introduction The first round of Noise Mapping, according to the

Environmental Noise Directive 2002/49/EC, showed that

road traffic noise is the most dominant noise source. This

was also found in the Noise Questionnaire set out by

Working Group Noise EUROCITIES (WGN) in 2008.

Approximately 70 million of the European citizens, living in

agglomerations as meant in the Environmental Noise

Directive are exposed to noise levels higher than 55 dB LDEN

resulting in annoyance and other health effects. It is expected

that these numbers will increase to 180 – 220 million people. According to these findings and expectations WGN decided

to start the battle against road traffic noise as one of their

main priorities. Therefore, numerous actions were already

undertaken such as requests to the European Commission to

strengthen the Emission Limit Values of vehicles, lorries,

motorized two and three wheelers and tires. Besides the

crusade against noisy vehicles, WGN also provided the cities

with information on Best Practices in order to tackle the

noise. This paper will give insight in the causes of transport,

the unwanted effects and how to reduce or mitigate this by

good urban planning.

figure 1: traffic growth (source: pocket book 2012 EU)

In these eras of urbanization and re-urbanization a high

percentage of people is living in urban areas and their

numbers will increase in the decades to come. Currently

almost seventy percent of the people are living in cities.

Their share will grow to eighty percent in 2050 [1] which

means that in 2050 the same amount of people is living in cities as now in the whole world, namely around 9 billion

people. Increase of urban mobility can be expected.

Determinants of car use

From [2] we know that there are a lot of factors influencing

car mobility. Most important to be mentioned here are:

­ Globalisation, single market EU

­ Urbanisation and densification

­ Prosperity and increased free time

­ Life style and other social factors

­ Spatial spread of work, living and leisure

Developments

Last decades the number of vehicles grew, see figure 1. The

red line represents the freight transport and the green line

represents passenger transport. The blue line represents the

GDP ref. the year 2000. Not only passenger cars grew but

also lorries and vans. Regarding the vans it should be

mentioned that the environmental performance of these sort

is rather poor. This for economic reasons. Entrepreneurs and

hauliers can buy transport volume for a low prices. As

known from numerous articles and reports, noise of cars,

vans and lorries has not or hardly decreased the last decades.

Compared to the first Emission Limit Values (ELV) in

European legislation [3] it appeared that ELV lowered but,

unfortunately the real noise emitted by the vehicles not or

just a little, see figures 2 and 3. Reasons are multiple, like

higher performance, wider and stiffer tires but also the test

method that has changes last years.

figure 2: noise emitted by cars over the years

figure 3: noise emitted by lorries over the years

Other development that took place are enhancing and expanding infrastructure all over Europe and this still is

going on. From [4,5,6] and private observations it is known

that more roads lead to more traffic. The financial downturn

could be considered as a phenomena that could decrease the

amount of traffic. For freight transport the dip can be seen

from figure 1. The economic crisis really has affected the

transportation of goods in EU27. The purchase of new cars

showed some drop but in general, on the long term, the car

fleet in EU27 is expected to grow [7].

In spite of a temporary lapse, due to the financial crisis, it

might be expected that the car fleet and the mileage is

growing next decades. This because the noise emitted by

individual vehicles seems not go down. Recently the

European parliament voted in favour of a weak proposal on

motor vehicle noise [8] which implies hardly any reduction.

This proposal should be approved by the European Council

as well but when it comes to legislation, no decline of noise

may be expected.

Dilemmas and solutions

European cities are confronted with some difficulties. The

noise burden in cities may be expected to grow. Reasons are

described above. Local measures do have limited effect,

especially in the inner city. Most effective measure that can

be applied is quiet road surface. Noise emission from cars

will not decrease probably. Source approach seems to be

failed. Because end of pipe measures do not result in

sufficient effects other measures are needed which are far

more drastically. The announcement of the European

Commission in [8] regarding the action on curbing 50% of

conventional fuelled vehicles by 2030 and 100% by 2050

from urban areas could offer the solution. This means that

only electric or hybrid motorised vehicles are allowed to

enter the city. Noise from ring ways could be mitigated by

speed reduction and noise barriers in combination with quiet

road surfaces when and where needed. In the time being (37

years) governments and society must work along various

strands. A number of effective noise measures that can be

implemented in the field of urban planning or re-planning

are:

a. Improvement of public transport by making it more

comfortable and accessible. Interconnections should

be enhanced and guaranteed. Citizens should have a

public transport (tram, subway, bus) stop within 5

minutes’ walk or bike trip from their homes.

Inbound travellers, from outside the city, should

dispose over parking places at cities’ boundaries

(platforms) from where the trip can be continued by

means of public transport. Public Transport stops

and station should be more comfortable, offering

shelter, shadow or warmth and some goods such as

coffee and news papers. Moreover, it should give

travel information.

b. Parking fees and parking places in cities, especially

the inner city should be scarce and expensive;

discouraging car use and -driving. An alternative

that could be considered is to give free access and

parking to electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

c. In order to stimulate and attract more electric and

hybrid cars municipalities could install charging

poles near parking places which are for free or set

parking places only destined for e-vehicles.

d. When extending the cities with new districts the

issues mentioned under a and b should be taken into

account. Building car free or at least car restricted

neighbourhoods.

e. The same applies for districts that are under urban

renewal. When renewing these districts it is

important to improve public transport, to provide

citizens with sufficient facilities like shops, schools,

et cetera.

f. Simultaneously people should work on (re-)

socialisation regarding car-use. By means of

education in families, social networks and schools

especially youngsters can be affected to chose for

public transport or other modes such as walking and

biking. From [9] it is known that youngsters are less

car addicted than adults and from [10] can be learnt

that youngsters that grew up in car-free or not car-

addicted families are more in favour of public

transport trips.

g. When applying quiet road surfaces in urban areas it

should be combined with lower speeds (maximum

40 km/hr) in order to avoid dominating tires noise.

h. Pedestrian zones could be set in city centres which

could be in force during twenty four hours or just

during the sensitive periods of the day.

i. Near sensitive buildings such as schools, nursing

homes, hospitals, et cetera and sensitive areas such

as designated quiet urban areas low speeds roads or

even car-free roads could be set by the

municipality. An alternative could be that those

roads are only allowed for low-noise vehicles like

electric and hybrid cars.

j. By designating shared spaces in urban areas car

drivers will be more carefully and attentive which

leads to lower and constant speeds. This shared

spaces could be seen as priority areas for more

vulnerable road-users like pedestrian and bikers.

k. In order to avoid noisy and dirty public transport

the competent authorities should demand for public

transport that is clean, energy friendly and quiet

meaning electric or hybrid fuelled public transport

for use in urban areas.

l. The same should apply for service vehicles like

dust (garbage) carts, cleaning vehicles, et cetera.

m. Municipalities could consider to implement the

plans proposed by the European Commission

earlier and not to wait until 2030 or 2050 but to use

a stricter time frame. E.g. 2025 and 2035.

n. Introducing clean, carbon free and noiseless city

logistics which is already in place in many

European cities for good deliveries at night.

o. Financial and fiscal measures could be a part of

urban planning measures as well. Some examples

are road charging, toll or financial support when

purchasing electric or hybrid vehicles.

p. Some very last measures that could be considered is

the road design and the design of the cities'

infrastructure. By designing buildings that shield

the noise from the sensitive areas behind those

buildings or laying the pedestrian and biking lanes

and service roads between the car lanes a small

reduction can be obtained.

Resume

By giving a limited list of measures that could be taken to

lower the noise in our European cities it might be clear that

lowering the noise burden significantly in cities is from a

technical point of view feasible. Whether this are measures

at source like engines, exhausts , tires noise and quiet road

surfaces. Traffic management could help also a little to

lower the noise by speed reduction, smoothing traffic flows,

detours, et cetera. The same applies for Intelligence

Transport Systems and a lot of other measures that can be

devised. These kind of measures are fighting the symptoms

and not the cause. However, it is unimaginable that use of

vehicles can be stopped. Transport is needed for economic

reason. Transport adds to 4.6% to employment in EU27 and

4.5% of the EUs' Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Transport

contributes also to prosperity, welfare and strange enough

also to human well-being. It is only the challenge to mitigate

or avoid the polluting effects of transport. Not only in urban

areas but also in rural areas. To realise a significant drop in

noise, air pollution and carbon emission in cities we could

count on electrification of transport means in urban areas. As

one may know this only gives a release locally because

electric power is mainly generated by means of fossil fuels

like coal, gas, wood and oil. The misery is emitted elsewhere

and after being emitted and spread it falls down in smaller

concentrations admittedly but it is still present.

Whereas it seems that European Union does not force the

car-industry to make their cars quieter, see above, the

answers should not be expected from 'Brussels' apparently.

Answers should come from local authorities and SME's

organising their work and life in another way. By means of

another mindset and by means of changing behaviour of

citizens, producers and consumers. From [11] we know that

changing human behaviour is more arduous than sending a

man to the moon. Thus mankind should not only be invited,

stimulated but also be forced a little to reach changed

behaviour. This could be done by implementing measures,

obstacles, instruments that adapts human behaviour in their

way to survive in daily life.

References

[1] http://www. eurostat.eu

[2] Wolfert, H. EUROCITIES Position Paper on Urban

Transport Noise, Internoise 2012.

[3] Commission Directive 2007/34/EC of 14 June 2007

amending, for the purposes of its adaptation to technical

progress, Council Directive 70/157/EEC concerning the

permissible sound level and the exhaust system of motor

vehicles.

[4] Gilles Duranton et all. The Fundamental Law of Road

Congestion: Evidence from US cities, 2008

[5] Tony Dutzik, More Roads, More Traffic, Maryland 2002

[6] Rudolf H.H. Pfleiderer et al. New Roads generate new

traffic. World transport policy and practice, volume 1, no 1

1995.

[7] ACEA Pocket Guide 2012

[8] European Commission. White Paper on Transport,

Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area- Towards a

competitive and resource efficient transport system. COM

(2011)144 final.

[9] Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment.

Mobiliteitsbalans 2012.

[10] Sonja Haustein et all. Car use of young adults: The role

of travel socialization. Universität Bochum 2008

[11] Wolfert, H. How to gain political and public interest for

noise. INTERNOISE 2010, Lisbon.