Europe Begins Noise Mapping Effort

Makarand writes "The European continent has begun its fight against noise pollution by initiating a program to map noise levels for cities in the European Union with more than 250,000 people. As placing microphones on every building in London or Paris to measure noise was not practical, data on the amount of traffic carried by roads and the noise levels was fed into computers to generate a model of noise levels across the city. The model's accuracy was verified by taking readings with microphones at 100 points in the city and was found to be accurate on average to within 1 decibel. The noise maps will allow planning to insulate the public from noise by directing traffic away from residential areas and making funds available to sound-proof thin walled homes."

Comments

Rich country?

[ObviousGuy]

Sometimes I wish the U.S. government wasn't spending so much trying to build up the military and instead redirect those funds to building up the national infrastructure.

It especially pangs me when I read about things like this where the British government is spending lots of excess government funds on sound-proofing people's homes.

Re:Rich country?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm... Did you even think before you posted, or do you just like to bring politics into every possible discussion? Europe has a much higher population density, therefore you can expect noise problems to be worse. I'm from Canada, but I don't recall hearing people from the US ranting and raving about the "noise pollution". It's barely been touched on by the media.

Re:Rich country?

[RevMike]

Sometimes I wish the U.S. government wasn't spending so much trying to build up the military and instead redirect those funds to building up the national infrastructure.

It especially pangs me when I read about things like this where the British government is spending lots of excess government funds on sound-proofing people's homes.

Please explain this to me. Someone purchases a house with walls that aren't very sound proof. They presumably knew this at the time of purchase, it would be ridiculous to think otherwise. Someone else spends the time to investigate their choices, and eventually spends more money on a house with more sound proof walls. Why should the person who spent extra to buy a house with soundproof walls now have to pay additional taxes to soundproof someone else's home - someone else who didn't care enough about it to shop for that feature in the first place?

If you bought a four bedroom home, and your neighbor only bought a two bedroom home, would you expect that the tax man would come and empty your bank account so that you neighbor could get an addition built?

All this does is encourage people to do the cheapest thing possible, then use some ill concieved government program to clean up the mess afterwards.

Please note: I'm not talking about a situation where the government built an airport or some such thing near a previously quiet neighborhood. I'm talking about cases where the home-owner knew (or should have known) the conditions prior to purchase.

Re:Rich country?

[ThogScully]

I know this is Slashdot, but don't you ever go outside? Not much you can do to sound proof your yard, is there. I assume you never open your windows either? Personally, I do both and if I were in England, I would hope the government would be spending a little effort to make living areas a little more liveable.

Now, I'm from the US, so I can't say if this is useful or not to the areas being investigated because I've never been there and don't know how loud it is. Realistically, there's the potential that this is more of a made up problem and people shouldn't be so concerned as the noise levels don't warrant it. However, just from this article, I'd say that's not an assumption I can jump to.

You seem to have no trouble jumping to it though.
-N

Re:Rich country?

[Noryungi]

Please explain this to me. Someone purchases a house with walls that aren't very sound proof. They presumably knew this at the time of purchase, it would be ridiculous to think otherwise. Someone else spends the time to investigate their choices, and eventually spends more money on a house with more sound proof walls. Why should the person who spent extra to buy a house with soundproof walls now have to pay additional taxes to soundproof someone else's home - someone else who didn't care enough about it to shop for that feature in the first place?

It's obvious if you live in Europe, where a lot of houses and buildings are old, and do not provide adequate sound-proofing.

If you add to this situation the fact that a lot of streets in large European cities are small and not made for cars (meaning medieval streets, not US-Grid-Style streets/boulevard), you have a recipe for a lot of noise and pollution, which many European cities are/were not designed to take into account.

Also, if you are lucky enough to find a cheap place to live in one of those cities (London and Paris -- for instance -- are among the most expensive places on Earth), noise control is going to be the least of your worries -- rent is a killer in those cities. And forget about space, since having more than one bedroom is going to deplete your bank account for the next 10 years or so.

Finally, I suspect most european governments are going to finance this simply by giving tax-breaks to people who will overhaul the sound-proofing of their flats and houses, and not tax other home owners.

Re:Rich country?

[gl4ss]

those houses were probably built decades ago. if they were built now they would have adequate soundproofing from day 1. it's more of a problem in old, big, central area buildings. these buildings have a lot of other problems as well though, but it's not the way you do things in certain countries that you would just demolish them and build them again properly(and sometimes it's wanted to keep the old buildings as heritage in the city picture). these buildings that are in the centres of the cities are sometimes 50 or more years old, and back then soundproofing wasn't viewed as necessity(there weren't that much noise anyways).

it's in goverments(the peoples!) intrest to protect the people from stress that comes from extra noise.. it costs money you know when people are unable to work for some reason or another. you could argue that it's in their(peoples) intrest to spend the money in nukes that are then stored in silos for 50 years and then thrown away as well, but i might not agree(the nukes don't up the productivity or enhance the living quality).

Re:Rich country?

[stry_cat]

I know this is Slashdot, but don't you ever go outside? Not much you can do to sound proof your yard, is there. I assume you never open your windows either? Personally, I do both and if I were in England, I would hope the government would be spending a little effort to make living areas a little more liveable.

Most neighborhoods I've seen build near roads have large sound barriers that really cut down on the noise. In many cases where new roads are made or old ones enlarged, sound barriers are included in the construction. Of course this doesn't actually put the cost of the things on the people who benefit from them. The people who benefit from these things should be the ones paying for them not the public at large. A better solution would be to have the homeowners association pay for the sound barriers.

Re:Rich country?

[chrispl]

Maybe if you consider that spending money improving problems in residential areas (like doing stuff about traffic noise) that raises the value of the area and make it a more desirable place to live might have some beneficial, if not immediate effects for everyone.

At least that's what Sim City taught me.

Re:Rich country?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course this doesn't actually put the cost of the things on the people who benefit from them.

No, of course you don't charge homeowners extra money in order to run a motorway through their back garden. Are you insane? Even putting up a sound barrier probably won't prevent the value of the nearby property from falling, so actually you should be charging tolls on all new or enlarged roads and paying a proportion of those tolls to people who live nearby.

Re:Rich country?

[aallan]

Please explain this to me. Someone purchases a house with walls that aren't very sound proof. They presumably knew this at the time of purchase, it would be ridiculous to think otherwise. Someone else spends the time to investigate their choices, and eventually spends more money on a house with more sound proof walls. Why should the person who spent extra to buy a house with soundproof walls now have to pay additional taxes to soundproof someone else's home - someone else who didn't care enough about it to shop for that feature in the first place?

Welcome to the difference between a pure capitalist economy, and a one where some remenants of socialism still remain. The person buying the sub-standard house might not be able to afford a better one? Why shouldn't our tax money be used to improve their standard of living?

All this does is encourage people to do the cheapest thing possible, then use some ill concieved government program to clean up the mess afterwards.

No, it doesn't. The "ill concieved government program" is helping improve the country's housing stock. Eventually all houses will be well sound proofed and you've improved everyone's standard of living. What's wrong with that?

The problem with far right and the far left is that there are things wrong with both capitalism and socialism. Ayn Rand is just as bad a Karl Marx.

Al.

Re:Rich country?

[slashusrslashbin]

Those worst affected houses in London are in general not just decades old, they are well on their way to being centuries old!

Not only do they have no sound insulation, but they may also have little thermal insulation, and ill-fitting single-glazed windows and doors.

For some time it's been possible to get grants to thermally insulate a house, largely since it is only really economic to do so in the long term (the energy savings also contribute to cutting CO2 emmissions), and poorer people living in the poorer housing can't afford it, and are usually renting anyway.

It's great to hear that the government may be recognizing noise pollution as something which significantly affects people's health in the same way that it recognizes air pollution as doing so.

Noise pollution from traffic causes sleep-deprevation, stress and ultimately illness, and most of the people living in the worst affected housing have little choice in where they live; it's not a choice of moving to somewhere nice and quiet, because that's where all the rich people have moved to.

Re:Rich country?

[RevMike]

Maybe if you consider that spending money improving problems in residential areas (like doing stuff about traffic noise) that raises the value of the area and make it a more desirable place to live might have some beneficial, if not immediate effects for everyone.

Certainly, but it would be much more effective to treat the cause rather than the effect. Would soundproofing people's homes really do that much good in improving the neighborhood if people couldn't open a window or sit in their yard for fear of the noise? Better that the noise be mitigated nearer to the source. Let people enjoy their yards and local parks to.

Re:Rich country?

[Brad]

A better solution would be to have the homeowners association pay for the sound barriers.

Within or near city centers many of the effected neighborhoods were built long before the road was expanded or even built. Many were boulivards carrying traffic at sedate speeds before their conversion to multi-lane super-highways that carry a greatly increased volume of vehicles at much higher speeds.

To follow a slightly different logic: The people using the roads should be the ones paying for them (forget about the lower taxes on diesel fuel used by the large trucks whose relentless pounding destroys the roads). As a direct result of the people using the new road, there is a large increase in noise. Therefore, as part of the roadway's construction or expansion, noise reduction needs to be included to try and mitigate some of the new noise pollution.

Re:Rich country?

[SubtleNuance]

Ive not read the whole of the posts here, but Im willing to bet there are allot of people crying "oh, this is pork, governments wasting money -- ha ha you Europeans pay tones of taxes and see it wasted ha ha suckers. bureaucracy run amuck with naval gazing. ha ha." kinds of attitude.

Really, how better to dedicate the resources of ones culture than the investigation of the cause/effect and remedy for general, shared problems? Why the hell not? I can think of no better things to investigate.

The masses are convinced -- almost without pause -- that spending money on single-serving yogurt-like snacks(ever *made* your own yogurt -- VERY VERY GOOD & EASY), RetiredBoxerBrand electric grills (whats wrong with your stove?), ZXY(TM) Brand $200 shoes, and blah blah blah is a good reward in exchange for my personal effort (the $ youve collected in exchange for work).. I say hogwash.

If Im going to sacrifice 40hrs of ever week, I damn well want something worth while in exchange for my Cached-Work($). Being the sucker in some capitalist's get-rich scheme, at the expense of the planet (pollution/waste/garbage) is not all that attractive -- but insead of paying for research like this (in taxes) people are usually DrivenByMindControl to buying SomeDamnedGarbage.

Where am i going with this? What is more useful? What is the greatest benefit of the product of our collective resources (the above mentioned consumer-garbage) **OR** some peace from the endless noise in a mechanized-industrial city....

I am willing to forgo buying some of that seemingly-benign-consumer-garbage in order to help pay researchers to think about something useful. Are you? Im betting most sane, normal people would agree. Instead of working to make Widgets (as I do), I wish there was a greater market for doing something WorthWhile. The Automobile that I contribute to manufacturing is not a goal I consider worthy of my time. I have no problem working, its the *goal* or product of my effort that is worthless. But, we live in a world with F'ed up priorities (we spend to much of our Cached-Work($) buying Useless Garbage, making the production of Useless Garbage a more common goal that most would like)

These kinds of 'decisions' and 'trade-offs' are taking place all the time (every thing you do has an impact on the world). Stop and think occasionally: "what benefit, at what cost is my decision having to bear on myself and my community? What responsibility do I accept or abandon that are the consequences of this decision? How can I make the world just a little better at Zero or No 'cost' to myself or my community?"

So, how far off topic is this?

That's it, I'm moving.

[sirReal.83.]

The noise maps will allow planning to insulate the public from noise by directing traffic away from residential areas and making funds available to sound-proof thin walled homes.

I can't even get my landlord to shovel the 3 feet of snow in front of my apartment building.

Alternative Traffic

[fastdecade]

About time noise pollution was taken seriously. But I'd question the solution...Instead of just diverting traffic, hopefully they look at reducing noisy types of transport and encouraging more quiet forms ---- e.g. light rail, bikes.

Re:Alternative Traffic

[scorilo]

Most European countries are already doing this. There are lanes on the roads specially designated for bycicles, they even have special lights and special signs for bycicles. Some municipalities (Geneve, Wien, etc.) provide free bycicles (you only have to leave a deposit, which is returned when you bring it back) and you can rent a bycicle in nearly all train station (and almost every city has one), and trains have special compartments so that you can travel with your bycicle. Public transportation is usually subsidized, and they pay much more for gasoline then in North America. Paris has a rollerblade marathon (its reply to Pamplona, maybe?). It's really kewl, I nearly destroyed my rental rollerblades!

Re:Alternative Traffic

[lovebyte]

BIKES? I guess you do not mean motorbikes. Because of the increase in congestion in and around Paris, there are more and more people that use motorbikes/scooters. The result is a big increase in noise levels, no reduction in polution (bikes produce more polution than most cars, surprisingly) and a large increase in fatal accidents.

Re:Alternative Traffic

[gnu-generation-one]

"About time noise pollution was taken seriously. But I'd question the solution...Instead of just diverting traffic, hopefully they look at reducing noisy types of transport and encouraging more quiet forms ---- e.g. light rail, bikes."

In case anyone didn't hear about it, they introduced a "congestion charge" for driving into and around London, which has slashed the amount of traffic in the capital, and made it a much nicer, quieter place.

So yes, they have done something towards solving the source problem. Now if only the British people could get over their attitude of "anyone who doesn't own a car is a loser", they we might just get somewhere with the rest of the country.

As to spending money on measuring the noise throughout the land, think back to optimising code? Of course you spend the most money on benchmarking. Otherwise you waste a lot more money solving an irrelevant problem. So yeah, make the noise map first.

Noise in America

[Nadsat]

I don't think America worried about this as much, as there was always more land, more space, more suburban sprawl. In European areas where land has turned more of a scarcity, then we see this interesting phenonom as a solution. Perhaps the same principals will be applied to more congested American cities too. It seems a good, bottom-up approach: re-routing traffic light signals and road development based upon environmental feedback.

Re:Noise in America

[flewp]

We have walls here in the US in some areas that partially block off the sound coming from the freeways. They're somewhat of an eyesore, but they do seem to help a bit. I always thought they should put a lot of vegetation around the walls to make them a little bit more aesthetically(sp) pleasing, but I don't know how the plants would do.

Re:Noise in America

[tomstdenis]

I live about a five minute walk from a fairly large nature trail [for where I live it's amazing cuz ARTLI factory cut houses are being put down like a five year old with lego!]. Even if you're say one km into the woods [and they're fairly thick] you can hear the dull sound of car tires [the somewhat high pitch noise they make when driving].

Anyways yeah, trees are better for other uses though, e.g. shade, slow down the wind, give us that nice oh I dunno breathable air. Where I live people will cut down trees that look at them wrong. It's very sad [at least at my house we have two f'ing huge maples! :-)]

Tom

But what about the micro-noise climate

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this model take into account the guy two floors down in our apartment block who practices his drumming skills on Saturday and Sunday afternoons?

Re:traffic.equals(noise) returns false

[Dr. Evil]

According to the article, 100 microphones do, and they agree within 1 decibel.

Finally, an anti-pollution project for Bush

[orthogonal]

As placing microphones on every building in London or Paris to measure noise was not practical

The Bush administration today announced strong support for the reduction of noise pollution in America. Environmental organizations, keenly aware of the administration's poor record on pollution, expressed shock at this surprise move.

Making the announcement for the administration were Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and (retired) Admiral John Poindexter. Attorney General Ashcroft explained that the Justice Department would generously fund a pilot project to monitor noise pollution in major urban areas known to harbor dissidents and Democrats. Ashcroft proclaimed that "Everyone, and especially the less-loyal elements in America, have a right to be free of the noise pollution caused by anti-war and anti-World Bank protestors, non-Christians, and really, anyone else who questions authority."

Paris Noise

[lovebyte]

For those living in Paris or wanting to move there, there is a noise map available here.
I live in the noisiest part! Time to move to the country.

Re:traffic.equals(noise) returns false

[thrillseeker]

According to the article, 100 microphones do [say noise comes from traffic], and they agree within 1 decibel.

So why not spend the billions developing quieter traffic? Put it into fuel cells and electric motors, for example.

a specific example

[selderrr]

of how complex these issues are, is the national airport in Brussels-Belgium : being such a densely populated country, there's no practical way to have airplanes land & take off without flying over housing areas. And with both traffic and houses increasing, the problem has now reached proportions where people are starting lawsuits against the govt for noise terrorism. Some have dozens of planes flying over at low altitude per night. That's a plane every 10 minutes. You try to sleep with that. Even tripple-isolated glass & roofs can't stop the sound of a cargo airplane. Especially old, russian planes (who have now been ruled illegal for flight)

Allthough, personally i would find the noise the least of my worries : my mother in law lives near another airport (Oostende) After those huge, bulky cargo planes took off, there's a very intense kerosene odor that hangs in the streets for 15-30 minutes, depending on the weather. Yikes !

I don't understand how peeps in Singapore survive this (well.. i gues they don't...)

Microphones?

[Junior J. Junior III]

Why microphones? Why not a decibel meter? Surely that's the proper tool. Ubiquitous microphones sounds like the seed of yet another Orwellian nightmare.

Re:1 decibel what?

[lcsjk]

Sound intensity is measured in db just like electrical power. The zero db level (Io) is defined as the threshold of human hearing for a 1000Hz tone, 10 ^(-16) watts per square centimeter.

Measured intensity is 10log(Inew/Io). However, the article said the calculated levels were accurate to within 1 db(average). That means the difference between calculated and measured was 1 db regardless of the actual level. Now, since the average was accurate within 1 db, that could mean 4 at 1/2 db difference and 1 at 3db difference for engineers. (.5+.5+.5+.5+3)/5=1

For politicians, it could mean that one was +42 and one was -38 for an average of (+48 -32)/2=1.
Beware of statistics.

Re:A thorough understanding

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably not. If you are in Europe, then you are in a country that is somewhat more socialist than the United States. However, even in Western Europe, most of the economy still remains in the hands of the people, not the state.

Nobody is ideal. The current rulling political party is Labour. The Government has control over some large sections of this countries infastructure. That's Socialist. You're right, it isn't Socialism in the sense of Eastern European communism, but then you appear to be using the Americanism of interchanging Socialism & Communism freely, when in fact they mean very different things here in Europe.

Which ones? Specifically?

I don't know. That's why they're guesses.

Anyway, here are some specifics

Because socialism is all about improving the standard of living for government elites.

Clearly demonstratably false and not even based in reality. Even if the poster could show me a PolSci text with this claim in it, they're still talking bollocks and should know it. Clearly and demonstratably false. Socialism is all about improving society through social reform and support. This includes providing improved housing for the lower classes (Witness the slum clearences of the 50's and 60's). This may or may not cause rises in house prices and better housing at the top of the chain as a side effect, but that is totally irrelevent as to what socialism is "about".

What is wrong with it is that the government meddling ends up pricing the houses higher and higher.

Several years ago the Chancelor handed control of Interest Rates to the Bank of England. A period of unequaled low interest rates and high borrowing has pushed house prices here in the U.K far higher than any EU initiative to provide sound insulation ever could. I've recently purchased a 30 year old 3 bed house with no central heating for 120,000UKP. The lack or presence of sound insulation wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference to me.

Marx inspires them to go out and kill tens of millions of people.

Again, crap and the poster knows it. Nowhere does Marx prescribe totalitarian rule or the murder of millions. Just because some bastards claimed Marx as a in influence doesn't mean anything; OBL claims Allah as an "influence" yet the vast majority of Muslims are quick to disagree with him.

Blame the road surface not the drivers

[Andy_R]

a large portion of 'traffic noise' is due to bad road surfaces.

So, rather than annoying drivers by making them go a longer way round (and therefore increasing congestion and pollution) mending the roads would be a better solution.

Here are some statistics from the Hong Kong govt who are already doing this:
http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environme ntinhk/ noise/data/road_surface.html

Re:traffic.equals(noise) returns false

[w3svc_animal]

This is already going on in the western U.S...
Cities are laying down rubberized asphalt in lieu of building noise walls.

A quote for the pdf belowThe study concluded that there was an approximate 10 dBA reduction in noise with the rubberized asphalt compared with the chip seal asphalt.
In my experience - it has been rather effective.

Check Here and
Here

Re:link to the Noise Level map for Paris

[wwwillem]

And for those not mastering French, click here to get to the maps. Especially the 3D modeling part is pretty cool.

1 decibel is quite a lot

[misterpies]

Decibels are a logarithmic scale: an increase of 1 decibel actually corresponds to a 30% increase in noise levels.

Actually I'm surprised it's even that accurate. Traffic levels only get you so far -- the urban environment (architecture, trees) is also extremely important. Under my apartmenet block there's a raised arcade that basically serves as a resonator, making traffic sound louder.

All for it

[sbadelt]

Personally, I get annoyed by the sound of a Honda Civic with an open-throat muffler and the constant hammering of Harley's. I'd love to see some enforcement of reasonable noise pollution violations... not just a random smathering of acoustic foam.

au contraire!

[tommck]

back then soundproofing wasn't viewed as necessity(there weren't that much noise anyways).

What about the guy rolling through town with a cart shouting "Bring out your dead!" and the lady beating the cat against the wall! That's a lot of noise if you ask me!

Re:Rich Country? Let's talk about NY City!

[bs_02_06_02]

I guarantee I'm not causing any noise in NYC. I don't live there. I don't drive there. I don't commute there. Therefore, I don't want to pay for the problems there.

If you read my post, you'll see tolls mentioned. Proper tolls will solve the commuter problem. Taking money from national defense will not. If the free market requires people to travel, they'll find the money to pay the toll. If they don't have the money to pay the toll, they won't use those roads, and there won't be as much need for insulation. I am not the problem, and I don't want to pay for it. I choose my charities. I don't want anyone else choosing for me.

Re:Rich Country? Let's talk about NY City!

[bombadillo]

"If you really want socialism, move to France or Sweden, and let us know how much happier you are after you're gone."

I lived in Europe for a couple of years and I was quite happy. After coming back to the U.S. I feel a lot less free. If it weren't for my family and love for the town that I grew up in, I would move back to Europe. I also now notice that a lot of Americans are under the impression that America is the only free country in the world and that the rest of the world is backwards and not as advanced.
"Why should I pay to make their lives more quiet? I didn't contribute to the problem. Why should I pay for the solution? You want to live there, fine, you pay for it. "

Taxes should provide solutions that better a society and that are not able to be accomplished by individuals. Did you go to a public school? I am sure there are a lot of rich people out there that don't want to pay for public education. After all they don't send their kids to public schools. Why should they pay for you're education?