EU Legislation
With the Leg. Decree No. 194 of 19 August 2005 (acknowledging EU directive 2002/49/CE of the European Parliament and Italy’s Lower House, of 25 June 2002), a common approach was defined to avoid, prevent and reduce the harmful effects from exposure to environmental noise according to the respective priorities.
The approach is one of drawing up a ‘noise map’ based on methods common to all European countries, public administration data and on the implementation of action plans. Over the years this directive will provide the basis for developing EU measurement descriptors for the main sources of noise.
The directive also requires that information to the public be supplied by “maps”, which represent both the current status of the environment (Acoustic Mapping) and the situation as foreseen after the installation of noise mitigation solutions (Action Plans) and lastly, the effectiveness of the planned correction measures. In following the recommendations of the international standard ISO 1996-2, the following colours have been used to represent the different levels of environmental noise.
| Noise level (dB) |
Colour |
|
| Lower of 35 |
Light green |
|
| da 35 a 40 |
Green |
|
| da 40 a 45 |
Dark green |
|
| da 45 a 50 |
Yellow |
|
| da 50 a 55 |
Ochre |
|
| da 55 a 60 |
Orange |
|
| da 60 a 65 |
Cinnabar |
|
| da 65 a 70 |
Carmine |
|
| da 70 a 75 |
Lilac red |
|
| da 75 a 80 |
Blue |
|
| da 80 a 85 |
Dark blue |
|
Autostrade per l'Italia actionsTo fulfill EU Directive 2002/49/CE nationally acknowledged aspects, Autostrade per l’Italia has worked out:
- The “Noise Mapping” which represent noise levels according to specific indicators that are useful for assessing exposure generated by the motorway source
- The “Action Plans” which aim at managing the issues of noise pollution and their related effects, fully acknowledging the Correction Plan
The results of the “Noise Mapping” and “Action Plans” are not directly comparable with the results of the “critical areas indentification” and the “Noise Control and Correction Plan”: indeed, European rules has introduced new noise descriptors (Lden parameter) for assessing noise and a different indication has been given on how to represent noise levels (set height of 4 metres above ground instead of in the most critical point and different calculation methods, i.e. the French model NMPB-Routes-96).
