For some years, there has been an effort to renew methodologies and regulations for the calculation of noise from road traffic. Older methods are being phased out, and new ones are being introduced. The newer methods have significantly better resolution and accuracy than their predecessors and take into account various details regarding the vehicle fleet, driving patterns, and type of road surface, all of which have a major impact on the noise. However, the parameters used for noise source data are either based on measurements from central parts of Europe or originate from measurements in the Nordics more than 20 years ago. As a result, there is uncertainty about whether they are sufficiently representative of current Norwegian conditions. The high percentage of electric vehicles in Norway is an example of this concern. The wear from studded tires on asphalt is another.
The main component of this project is to record sounds at various locations along Norwegian roads, with different speeds and road surfaces, to quantify corrections for specific Norwegian conditions. The recordings are made at the roadside, and the instrumentation used is borrowed from the EU-project NEMO. Each vehicle's speed and type are registered (via license plates). This will provide a solid foundation for calculating the statistical average and noise variation for various combinations of vehicle compositions, speeds, and road surfaces.
A large amount of data needs to be collected for analysis across all relevant vehicle categories, different surfaces, and speeds. The measurement station will therefore be unmanned, and machine learning algorithms along with appropriate signal processing procedures will be used to isolate relevant events to calculate the correct noise levels accurately. The measurements are scheduled for 2023, with data analysis planned for 2024.