In 2002, the European SILVIA project was initiated under the title 'Sustainable Road Surfaces for Traffic Noise Control'. Work package 4 of the SILVIA project is focused on the investigation of existing and new noise reducing pavement materials, technologies and maintenance methods to produce guidelines on how to design, build and maintain sustainable noise reducing road surfaces. In Denmark, a sub-project called SILVIA.DK is being conducted to develop and test open thin layers as noise reducing pavements under Nordic conditions. Three different types of thin open pavements were examined: open graded asphalt concrete with a Marshall air void of 8-14%, split mastics asphalt with a Marshall air void of 4-8%, and a thin layer constructed as a combination pavement. The project was designed to test various hypotheses relating to noise, structure, safety, winter maintenance and rolling resistance.
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