Introduction

Silence 3 is an application for the standardisation of noise mapping, development of noise policy and action planning around highways on both national and regional scale. It provides a filled noise database and a distributed calculation facility in a user friendly GIS environment. It presents, for example, noise contours geographically and estimates the amount and type of surface area, number of houses and inhabitants exposed to a certain noise level. Silence 3 allows for complex detailed calculations in large areas.

Usage

The application uses a large amount of data from different sources. Information on hectometre signs, traffic flow, road surface, noise barriers and ground level information is added to geographical information of roads (network). Other information, such as geographical information from residential areas, industrial areas, nature areas and the so-called “silent areas” is combined to get the complete model for noise calculations and analysis.

The Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public works and Water management's Centre for Transport and Navigation has been collecting data for the complete network, which consists of ca. 7000 km of highways. This data is combined since 1989.

Noise levels can be calculated at discrete points and noise contours can be interpolated based on smart grids. The calculation is done with DGMR’s Geonoise/Predictor noise calculation software in accordance with the Dutch calculation method for traffic noise.

Organisation

Users of the Silence 3 application are supported by an organisation that provides a helpdesk, organises regular meetings, corrects problems and supplies regular updates of both application and data. This organisation enhances the exchange of knowledge and experience between users and it provides a new set of the most recent data every year.

Purpose

Silence 3 aims to improve the way in which government officials throughout the country produce and use noise mapping for policy related, strategic and trend studies. The application provides a means of standardisation by enhancing the use of the exact same input data, software environment and calculation method. It introduces a new set of standard ways to estimate noise levels, which is suitable both on a national and on a regional scale.

In addition, the application allows users to modify and improve data according to their own needs. Silence 3 will generate estimations that can be compared even if they are produced by different users.

For further information, please contact the project leader for Silence ir. S. Koolmees (Centre for Transport and Navigation) or the development project manager ing. R.G. Schmidt (DGMR).