Noise barriers on major road corridors
This project has led to the development of a DST (Decision Support Tool) that is a stand-alone tool that radically simplifies the analysis and assessment of noise impacts. It has been primarily designed for assessment of road traffic noise although the process is applicable to the assessment of almost any environmental noise.
Decision Support Tool is a database application incorporating a rule database, a cost database and assessment engine and tools to assist in import and reporting data. The program also comes with a comprehensive reporting tool (Fast Reports). For advanced users the reporting tool Fast Reports also includes a programming script so that further calculations may be carried out. The script language is the popular programming languages of Java, C++, Pascal and Basic.
DST has been based on research by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
The following tasks may be carried out using DST:
- Development of complex noise rules. The program is installed with all QDMR assessment rules current at July 2006
- Development of noise control costing database;
- Assessment of noise goals at receptors;
- Methods to convert calculations from one index to another;
- Adoption of a secondary independent noise level criterion for each receptor;
- Real-time assessment of calculated noise levels
- Methods to compare calculations between multiple noise modelling cases;
- Comprehensive reporting facility;
- Tools to permit the user to develop and deploy rules and costing databases;
- Methods to share reports between members of a workgroup.
The final project report is confidential and not available