Anomalous Data of END Noise Mapping for Major Roads on the Website of the European Environment Agency

Abstract

The database Noise Observation and Information Service for Europe of the European Environment Agency (EEA) provides data of the number of people exposed to noise generated by air, rail and road traffic across Europe. These figures were based on the output of noise mapping according to the European Noise Directive (END) in 2007. While examining this database, there appears to be a number of anomalies associated with the END data for major roads in European member states.The project group Road Noise of the Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR) has assessed the EEA data for noise exposure along major roads. The output of this assessment reveals some remarkable figures for deduced indicators like average household size, average residential density per km2, distance of the Lden contour and people living inside agglomerations alongside major roads. In order to trace if and where things might have gone wrong, the National Roads Authorities (NRAs) of the member states of CEDR Road Noise were asked to compare their own NRA data with the EEA data for major roads. It seems there are several possible sources of errors. This paper not only describes these sources of errors, it also gives recommendations to improve the output of future END noise mapping in terms of (more) accurate noise exposure data. Unbiased data are essential because the END noise exposure data are the driving force in noise abatement on a European level as well as on a national level.