Road traffic noise is the dominant noise source in European cities according to noise mapping. Approximately 70 million Europeans are exposed to noise levels over 55 dB, a number expected to rise to 180-220 million. While vehicle emission limits have lowered, real-world noise levels have not decreased much due to factors like more powerful engines. To reduce traffic noise, cities need to promote alternatives to private car ownership and use, such as improved public transport, reduced parking, and the transition to electric vehicles. A variety of urban planning measures can help lower noise, including limiting car access and prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists in some areas. Significant noise reductions require electrifying urban transport by 2030-2050.

1. 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

2. 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.

3. 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.