| Summary: | Two of the main objectives of the European Directive
on environmental noise are, firstly, to unify acoustic
indices for assessing environmental noise and, secondly,
to standardize assessment methodologies. The ultimate
goal is to objectively and comparably manage the
impact and evolution of environmental noise caused both
by urban agglomerations and by traffic infrastructures
(roads, rails and airports). The use of common indices
and methodologies (together with five-year plan assessment
required by the authorities in charge) should show
how noise pollution levels are evolving plus the effectiveness
of corrective measures implemented in the action
plans. In this paper, available results fromnumerous European
agglomerations (with particular emphasis on Spanish
agglomerations) are compared and analysed. The impact
and its evolution are based on the percentage of people
exposed to noise. More specifically, it demonstrates
the impact caused by road traffic, which proves to be the
main noise source in all agglomerations. In many cases,
the results are extremely remarkable. In some case, the
results are illogical. For such cases, it can be concluded
that either assessment methodologies have been signifi-
cantly amended or the input variables to the calculation
programs have been remarkably changed. The uncertainty
associated with the results is such that, in our opinion, no
conclusions can be drawn concerning the effectiveness of
remedial measures designed within the action plans after
the Directive’s first implementation Phase.
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