Clear, unambiguous legislation and international agreements on noise and noise policy are often hampered by the different ways different countries deal with measures and calculations. This obstructs the comparison of international data on annoyance by noise. Furthermore it obstruct the comparison of the cost-effectiveness of measures on noise abatement in different countries. This report describes the legal indices of road, railway and aircraft noise of different European countries. It shows the diversity of current indices, especially in the area of aircraft noise. This makes a good comparison of international data almost impossible. This report also describes the consequences of changes due in noise indices for the Dutch situation. The way of calculating traffic noise differs a lot between different European countries. Finally, noise standards in different European countries are compared. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting