The Noise Abatement Plan of an Italian Road Network: A Comparison Between Standard and Innovative Methodologies

The Italian legislation prescribes that the managing authorities of transportation infrastructures have to prepare a noise control and abatement plan, using established procedures and indexes defined both at national and regional level. The aim of the paper is to compare the standard procedure given by Umbria Region with three innovative methodologies proposed by the authors to increase the adequacy and the quality of roads noise planning activity. Both standard and innovative approaches require the creation of a ranking of priority to define where noise abatement actions are most necessary. The proposed methodologies introduce at various levels a more detailed phase of noise mapping, by using façade noise map instead of grid noise map, and define new rankings of priority based on improved location of calculation points. More accurate and realistic noise plans allow to optimize the budget allocated for acoustic rehabilitation and to mitigate the most critical situations. The innovative procedures can be easily transferred at European level for the realization of Noise Action Plans requested by the Environmental Noise Directive 2002/49/EC.