Noise Mitigation Plan – Province of Rome

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The project is part of the definition process concerning the Noise Mitigation Plan regarding several kilometers of road infrastructure managed by Province of Rome. This process complies with all the requirements prescribed by the decree of 29/11/2000 issued by the Italian Ministry of the Environment.

Taking into account these objectives, in 2005 the Province of Rome elaborated a feasibility study regarding the preparation of the Noise Mitigation Plan. In addition, during the same year and following the Feasibility Study provisions, the Province of Rome developed a document defining the technical, methodological and administrative procedures involved in the elaboration of the Plan.

PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS

In the territory belonging to the Province, eight major roads were identified as subject to preliminary acoustic studies as prescribed in the aforementioned DM 29/11/2000. The preliminary study aims at identifying potentially critical areas on which to perform noise impact investigations. In this phase 140 km of provincial roads were analyzed in order to select the sections to subject to further acoustic analyses. These insights involved about 40 km of road infrastructure.

To perform the analyses, the following steps were necessary:

• Knowledge of the examined territory obtained through the collection of information essential to the acoustic study such as mapping of the area and traffic data;
• Data implementation in an appropriate acoustic simulation model;
• Model calibration based on the acoustic measurements acquired on the site;
• Determination of receptors to be examined and definition of related acoustic values to compare with the threshold limits established by regulations;
• Analysis and processing of model outputs comprising of the evaluation of the population involved by the estimated noise levels;
• Definition of indexes related to the priority of the necessary mitigation actions based on the severity of the situation encountered.