City of Gelsenkirchen: Noise mapping Road transport

The European Union’s Environmental Noise Directive created a legal framework across Europe to integrate the issue of noise more into municipal planning. The implementation of this Directive entails two tasks: the preparation of noise maps and the preparation of noise action plans. The noise maps capture certain sources of noise in a city, which they cause noise pollution and how many people are affected, thereby making the noise problems and negative noise effects visible. They are the basis for noise action planning. The results of noise mapping are not comparable to results from existing national calculation methods or with existing limit, guidance and orientation values of various legal regulations. The action values for a subsequent action plan have been set by the Ministry of Environment, Agriculture, Nature and Consumer Protection in NRW 70 dB(A) for the total day and 60 dB(A) at night. The results are presented after verification by the State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection (LANUV) on the environmental noise website (www.umgebungslaerm.nrw.de) of the LANUV via the Internet