Abstract

Public involvement in the planning process is a prerequisite for democracy. Sound environment issues tend to be limited to a mere exercise in noise estimation and guideline values. Such information is difficult for the layman to understand, and such a lack of understanding must entail shortcomings in the democratic process. In addition to decibel calculations interpretable by experts, the sonic environment can also be described in more pedagogical ways. This paper reports on the experiences of a concrete planning case, the widening of the railway through Åkarp, in southern Sweden, where regular calculations of equivalent noise and maximum noise are undergoing critical analysis. In order to complement the noise description, a new measurement has been devised, ”high noise time,” which is equal to the total time per 24 hours in which trains pass through a place without stopping. One hypothesis is that the frequency and duration of the passing of trains may show a higher correlation with the experience of being disturbed than does the maximum noise peak per passage or the equivalent (average) noise level distributed over 24 hours. Film technology has also been developed as a method for recording the frequency and duration of train passage

Published in

Environmental Practice
2007, Volume: 9, number: 2, pages: 119-127

SLU Authors

• Skärbäck, Erik

  • Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Landscape Architecture


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1466046607070184

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/17038