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Common Noise Assessment Methods

Article 6 (2) of the Directive

"…Common assessment methods for the determination of Lden and Lnight shall be established by the Commission in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 13(2) through a revision of Annex II. Until these methods are adopted, Member States may use assessment methods adapted in accordance with Annex II and based upon the methods laid down in their own legislation. In such case, they must demonstrate that those methods give equivalent results to the results obtained with the methods set out in paragraph 2.2 of Annex II."

Commission Recommendation on interim computation methods (6 August 2003)

Annex II of Directive 2002/49/EC lays down four interim computation methods for the production of strategic noise maps.

These methods needed to be adapted, in particular to the common noise indicators Lden and Lnight. To that end, the Commission has adopted on 6 August 2003 a Recommendation concerning the guidelines on the revised interim computation methods for industrial noise, aircraft noise, road traffic noise and railway noise, and related emission data (Official Journal L 212 , 22/08/2003 P. 0049 - 0064). The Recommendation is available by clicking the language icons below.

The Institute for Health and Consumer Protection (IHCP) of the Directorate General Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission is supporting the Directorate General for the Environment (DG ENV)) for the implementation of the European Noise Directive 2002/49/EC. In the context of the European Environmental Noise Directive 2002/49/EC (END), the European Commission decided to prepare Common NOise aSSessment methOdS (CNOSSOS-EU) for road, railway, aircraft and industrial noise in order to improve the reliability and the comparability of results across the EU Member States.

The roadmap for the preparation of CNOSSOS-EU includes:

1. The exercise on equivalence of existing noise assessment methods in EU;
2. The definition of the target quality and input values requirements for European noise mapping;
3. The establishment of requirements and criteria for the screening, rating and pre-selection among existing assessment methods in EU, USA and Japan that best cover the needs and requirements of END;
4. The conceptualisation of a ‘fit for purpose’ framework which allows a two-level application of CNOSSOS-EU according to the objectives of the assessment;
5. The selection of the components of the common noise assessment methods through a series of Workshops, benchmarking/testing and other ad-hoc meetings with European noise experts;
6. The drafting of the CNOSSOS-EU methodology along with guidelines for its competent use in connection with data requirements and in line with the two-levels ‘fit for purpose’ framework;
7. The in-depth consultation, review and finalization of CNOSSOS-EU together with the EU Members States;
8. The preparation of the operational part of CNOSSOS-EU;
9. The long-term planning for assisting the EU MS to reliably implementing CNOSSOS-EU in the context of the future rounds of noise mapping in Europe.

The common noise assessment framework (CNOSSOS-EU) will allow for a coherent, transparent, optimised and reliable use for strategic noise mapping (first level of application, mandatory) and action planning (second level of application, voluntary) in relation to the data requirements, their quality and availability and last but not least, in terms of flexibility to adapt the national databases of input values, thus ensuring a smooth transition from existing national methods to the common methods.

DG JRC has finalised a draft Reference report which is now being discussed with the EU MS via the Noise Regulatory Committee. It should stressed the fact that, the info contained in this report should be only considered as a solid background aimed at facilitating and streamlining the forthcoming discussions to be formally undertaken with the EU MS on CNOSSOS-EU. In the context of this formal consultation, it is envisaged to achieve consensus on the way forward for putting in place a robust methodological framework for common noise assessment methods in EU to be applied for reliably assessing exposure to environmental noise in Europe.

In conclusion, the European Commission is advancing the preparation of common noise assessment methods in EU (CNOSSOS-EU) with the ultimate scope to enhance the reliability and comparability of noise data in EU in the years to come. In this process, the European Commission and the European Environmental Agency progressively have been involving a wide number of European noise experts with the aim to prepare the ground for a more critical and in-depth discussions with the EU Member States (to be formally undertaken via the Noise Regulatory Committee meeting starting from 11 June 2010), on the basis of a robust framework of common noise assessment methods which takes into account the state of the art of scientific/technical/practical knowledge about assessment of environmental noise in Europe and also at global scale.