NOISE ABATEMENT PLANS IN TOWNS AND ENVIRONMENTALLY COMPATIBLE URBAN TRANSPORT - THE ACTIVITIES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE IN GERMAN AND OTHER EUROPEAN TOWNS

摘要

On the level of the European Communities (EC), a directive is in preparation on the Assessment andManagement of Environmental Noise which has to be put into practice by all member states during thenext five years. More details about this EC framework will be reported in this paper.One of the starting points for this EC activity was the practical experience with noise assessmentand noise abatement planning in Germany. Since 1990, the Federal Immission Control Act obliges thelocal authorities or other responsible administrations to asses and to declare harmful environmentalimpacts caused by noise and to draw up Noise Abatement Plans (NAP). In the following, the legal andorganizational framework of NAP will be described and the practical experience from several towns andcities will be reported. As traffic is the most important source of noise impact, NAP have to be linked tourban transport planning in order to solve the problems. Thus, NAP often initiate environmentalcompatible urban planning and transport policies in German towns.