EU Road Traffic Noise Contours for Night Period, 2021 Base Year

European Union noise contour maps for the night period, created for the 2021 base year under the EU Environmental Noise Directive. The dataset is based on provincial roads with traffic intensity exceeding 3 million vehicles per year, calculated using the CNOSSOS method. The traffic intensities used are from 2019, as 2020 and 2021 volumes were lower due to COVID -19 measures.

Use Cases

• Modeling environmental noise exposure based on road traffic intensity data.
• Assessing compliance with EU noise directive thresholds for the night period.
• Analyzing spatial noise pollution patterns from roads with over 3 million vehicles per year.
• Studying the impact of COVID-19 measures on traffic noise modeling by comparing 2019 intensities to later years.

Strengths

• Created under the authoritative EU Environmental Noise Directive framework.
• Focuses on high-impact roads with traffic intensity greater than 3 million vehicles per year.
• Uses the standardized CNOSSOS calculation method for noise modeling.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Traffic data is from 2019, not the nominal 2021 base year, which may affect temporal accuracy.

Provenance

Source

Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties

Collection Method

Calculated using the CNOSSOS method based on provincial road traffic data.

Time Range

Base year 2021, using traffic intensities from 2019.

Freshness

Updated once every five years; last update date is unknown.

Geography

European Union (likely specific to the contributing member state, though not explicitly stated).