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Europe Begins Noise Mapping Effort

Posted by Hemos on from the mapping-of-a-different-ssort dept.

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."

24 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. Rich country? by ObviousGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
    1. Re:Rich country? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Rich country? by RevMike · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Rich country? by ThogScully · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

      --
      I've nothing to say here...
    4. Re:Rich country? by Noryungi · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
    5. Re:Rich country? by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    6. Re:Rich country? by chrispl · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

      --
      What post? The one you're carrying inside your rusty innards!
    7. Re:Rich country? by aallan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
      --
      The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
    8. Re:Rich country? by slashusrslashbin · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    9. Re:Rich country? by Brad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    10. Re:Rich country? by SubtleNuance · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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?

  2. That's it, I'm moving. by sirReal.83. · · Score: 4, Funny
    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.

  3. Alternative Traffic by fastdecade · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Alternative Traffic by scorilo · · Score: 5, Informative

      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!

      --
      "One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that ones work is terribly important." -BRussell
    2. Re:Alternative Traffic by lovebyte · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --

      I'll do it for cheesy poofs.

  4. Noise in America by Nadsat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --

    The Custom Mary
    1. Re:Noise in America by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  5. But what about the micro-noise climate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    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?

  6. Re:traffic.equals(noise) returns false by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  7. Finally, an anti-pollution project for Bush by orthogonal · · Score: 5, Funny

    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."

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  8. Paris Noise by lovebyte · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --

    I'll do it for cheesy poofs.

  9. a specific example by selderrr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...)

    --
    When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
  10. Re:1 decibel what? by lcsjk · · Score: 4, Informative
    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.

  11. Blame the road surface not the drivers by Andy_R · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

    --
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