Reduction of road traffic noise: The legislature’s point of view

Measures to improve motor-vehicle technology play an important role in the reduction of road traffic noise. Therefore, appropriate noise control regulations must ensure that all possibilities for reducing noise levels through technical vehicle-related measures are exploited. An important basis for achieving this is the introduction of a test method for motor vehicle type approval that depicts the driving and operating modes occurring in real traffic as closely as possible, so as to ensure that future noise limit value reductions will influence noise emissions in real traffic more effectively than has been the case to date. Furthermore, there is the need for a separate noise emission regulation for tires that ensures that tires introduced to the market satisfy ambitious noise criteria. In addition, it must be ensured that low-noise road surfaces are used when road surface renewal work is carried out on noisy streets in particular. An essential requirement for reducing road traffic noise is that noise control regulations are complied with by all vehicles throughout their lifetimes. To this end, a concept for improving the efficiency of compliance monitoring must be developed. The contribution will present available results and report on planned activities in this field.