Noise equivalent level (night) railways 2022

The Noise material has been compiled from studies commissioned by the Finnish Transport Agency and from materials commissioned by municipalities subject to reporting obligations. The regions and municipalities in Finland are the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen) and Turku, Tampere, Lahti and Oulu. Surveys shall be drawn up for roads with an annual traffic volume of at least 3 million vehicles and for railways with an annual traffic of at least 30 000 trains. In addition, noise areas in the street network of municipalities subject to reporting obligations are included in the data, as well as other roads in the road network. Road and rail noise surveys commissioned by the Finnish Transport Agency have used laser scanning data from the National Land Survey of Finland. In the case of municipalities, local government spatial datasets and possibly the National Land Survey of Finland’s data have been used mainly. Noise calculation is based on the spread of noise in the 3D terrain model, which has been modelled on noise sources, buildings, noise barriers and terrain forms, as well as their acoustic characteristics. Noise emissions from traffic noise sources are determined on the basis of traffic volumes, speeds and correction terms. Correction terms specify the starting values in situations where the starting value assumption is not correct (e.g. a specific road pavement, traffic light crossing, abnormal rail or rail condition effect, or bridge). The reports are based on the EU Environmental Directive (2002/49/EC) and the Environmental Protection Act (527/2014), which require cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants to draw up a noise report and an action plan for noise prevention every five years.