OF THE PROCEDURES REQUIRED BY LEGISLATIVE
DE-CREE 194/05 FOR THE AGGLOMERATIONS OF BARI AND
TARANTO
Francesco Cardillo, Rocco di Modugno, Benedetto Figorito, Anna Guarnieri Calò
Carducci, Gianluca Primavera, Maddalena Schirone
Arpa Puglia, Corso Trieste 27, 70126 Bari e-mail:a.guarnieri@arpa.puglia.it
In compliance with the provisions of Legislative Decree 194/05, adopted as transposition of Di-rective 2002/49/EC relating to the assessment and management of environmental noise, Envi-ronmental Agency of Apulia (Arpa Puglia) has been identified as the competent authority for the development of strategic noise maps and action plans of the agglomerates of the Apulia region. The paper presents the results and the strategic choices adopted for the agglomerations of Bari and Taranto, with a focus on critical issues related to the implementation of action plans, for both the well documented conflicts between the European directive and the Italian legislation (ab-sence of limit values for Lden and Lnight, lack of clear criteria for the identification and characteri-zation of critical areas and quiet areas, etc.) and for those existing at the local level (eg. availabil-ity of homogeneous and updated data, the lack of compliance with the Framework Law n. 447/1995 and its implementing decrees by municipalities and operators of transport infrastruc-ture, etc.).
1.
Introduction
The Environmental Noise Directive 2002/49/EC (commonly abbreviated END) asked to member states to prepare strategic noise maps (MAS) and their correspondent noise action plans (PdA) for agglomerations (over 100,000 inhabitants), major roads (over 3 million vehicles per year), major rail (more than 30,000 trains per year), and major airports (more than 50,000 aircraft movements). END’s aims were define a common approach to avoid, prevent or reduce the harmful effects due to exposure to noise. Currently the Italian legislation regarding environmental noise is based on Framework Law n. 447/1995 and the consequent implementation decrees. The transposition of END into national Decree n.194/2005 (to be completed through the issuing of implementation de-crees) has generated the need to harmonize our legislation with the European system (Curcuruto et al. 2011). In addition to this, there is the need to reconcile national and international legislation with local laws, in particular the regional Law n.3/2002, which identifies other responsible figures and planning tools in the process of noise abatement.
The Italian municipalities are required to realize the Municipal Acoustic Zoning Plan (PZAC) and the Municipal Noise Abatement Plan (PRAC) and, for those with more than 50,000 inhabitants, Noise Biennial Report (BR). Competent authorities for transport infrastructure must implement Noise Containing and Abatement Plan (PCAR). In the case of municipalities of Bari and Taranto nowadays neither of them has complied with its obligations of law.
With regard to transport infrastructure, competent authorities for major roads and railways have presented action plans in compliance with national Decree n.194/2005, which basically refer to their respective PCAR, containing a first series of interventions that were planned but not yet imple-mented. For this reason, the PdA of Bari and Taranto were developed in a context influenced by multiple problems, both technical and procedural:
• the no PZAC and PRAC plans leads to a difficult in the definition of an organic and shared process of rehabilitation;
• problems in the integration of the PdA drawn up by Arpa Puglia with PdA produced by competent authorities for major transport infrastructure, which are basically a mere update of remediation provided by PCAR, avoiding some of the main objectives of the END (defi-nition of long-term strategies, identification and preservation of quiet zones, summary of public consultations);
• technical conflicts between the European and Italian laws, such as the absence of limit val-ues for the two new indicators Lden and Lnight recognized at European level and the lack of a methodology on the identification of the critical areas to be reclaimed and the silent ones to be preserved;
In this context, there is a real risk that the PdA is reduced substantially to a restatement of the da-ta of the MAS and to a simple declaration of general intents, instead of developing an integrated urban noise action planning capable of intercepting transversely other territorial and environmental policies, related, for example, to urban planning, mobility, landscape and air quality. The aim of this paper is to describe the procedures, adopted by Environmental Agency of Apulia (Arpa Puglia), to tackle these critical issues and to support policy makers, providing concrete and operative tools of noise abatement, with a focus on the methodology adopted to identify critical and quite areas and the relative cost-benefit analysis of the suggested solutions.
2. Description and acoustic characterization of the agglomerations
The study areas are Bari e Taranto in Apulia Region of Italy. They coincide with agglomeration boundaries, defined by regional authority. Arpa Puglia has been identified as the competent authori-ty for the development of the MAS and PdA of the agglomerations of the Apulia region. Data sources used in this study are showed in Table 1.
Table 1 – Data Sources of the agglomerations
Agglomeration name Bari Taranto
Population 316.532 199.936 Land Area (km2) 116 230 Density (population / km2) 2729 869 Road lenght (km) 664 730 Railways lenght (km) 83 36.5 Airport (number) 1 0 Seaport (number) 1 1
The input spatial data (terrain, infrastructures land cover, etc.) were downloaded by geoportal of Apulia Region and population data were obtained from the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT). The evaluation of noise produced by roads and other sources was performed with the simulation software CadnaA. A digital model have been built, including 3D representations of ground, build-ings, roads, railways, airport, etc. Roads and railways noise was simulated by inserting into the software the value of sound power for each source in the three reference periods (day, evening, night), obtained from acoustic measurements.
For other sources (airport, seaport and industrial sites) were used sourceDB database for ma-chineries, noise pollution documentation or default values for areas without data provided by the “Good practice guide for Strategic Noise Mapping and the Production of Associated Data on Noise Exposure” (GPG) issued by European Commission working group on the assessment of exposure to noise (WG-AEN). The final results have been obtained both as noise maps and tables reporting the number of people exposed to certain values of noise, considering Lden and Lnight as main indicators. The M of Bari and Taranto indicate that the major source of noise annoyance is road traffic (Figure 1).
3. Noise action plan in the agglomerations of Bari and Taranto
Noise Action Plans have been developed from the results of the strategic noise maps, which showed highly critical situations for different areas or buildings (“hot spots”) in the urban agglom-erations, caused mainly by road traffic.
For agglomerations of Bari and Taranto the action plans have the common goal of determining which roads or sets of roads are responsible for such critical issues at the hot spots in order to pro-pose mitigations measures, but are characterized by a different approach and a different develop-ment: the first more generic and indicative, the second more detailed and strategic, as will be ex-posed. The rehabilitation proposals for Bari and Taranto were both organized on two different time levels, as indicated by the minimum requirements of Legislative Decree 194/05:
• Short and medium term strategic actions: define the measures to be implemented with
particular urgency in residential areas (medium term actions) and sensitive receptors (short term actions) for which the noise generated by road traffic sources is significantly greater than the established noise limit values.
• Long term strategic actions: define the various measures for containing and reducing
over-all noise in a long-term time horizon in the areas where it was found any amount of excess of noise limits.
The long term strategic action plan is distinguished by the short-medium term strategies because the extent of the recovery is much more consistent, as there is a much wider portion of land to be reclaimed. The objective, in this case, is to achieve a satisfactory level of comfort noise in the entire urban agglomeration, so the plan is more guided by opportunity criteria that by those of urgency.
In a so extensive planning process, in addition to the classic noise abatement measures (noise barriers, low-noise road surface, sound insulation) it should be planned all those actions that may have, even if indirectly, a positive effect in the reduction of noise, such as by acting on urban mobil-ity and on territorial planning. Interventions of this kind can be, for example, systems that act on the amount and speed of traffic and influence driver behaviour (humps and cushions, chicanes, rede-sign of street space, zone “30”, speed control by the authorities), incentives and development of alternative mobility and less noisy transport modes (public transport, bicycle, pedestrian), more efficient management of the road network. The adoption of these tools, however, requires a strong synergy between all the different actors involved in the process of rehabilitation, which provides, first of all, an involvement by the municipalities, starting from the creation of PZAC and PRAC. For this reason, the PdA of Taranto and Bari, are still at a preliminary stage which currently gives priority to the most critical situations through the adoption of strategies in the short term, while the long term strategies, such as those described above, are suggested on a purely indicative way, wait-ing for an update that includes an organic and transverse remediation process, aimed at improvwait-ing the quality of the urban environment as a whole.
3.1 “Hot Spot” analysis and proposed actions in the short and medium term 3.1.1 Agglomeration of Bari
Hot spots interested by short-medium term actions were identified by a comparison between the sound pressure levels obtained by the simulations and specific threshold values in term of Lday end Lnight, chosen taking into consideration the need not to have critical areas too large.
At this point three reference threshold have been set, depending on the type of receptors (sensi-tive or not). This method is characterized by a strongly indica(sensi-tive level of analysis, which simply
urban context in which the interventions are inserted. Instead the hot spots have been identified only by estimating the noise levels at façade points and the exceeding of noise limits, without taking into account the number of people exposed. Table 2 shows the three threshold levels and the recom-mended solutions, that put before any other intervention the adoption of the Bari PZAC.
Table 2 - Recommended solutions on municipality of Bari Field action Criticality Time
frame Recommended solutions
Residential Lnight>65dB(A)
Short / Medium
Term
1. Adoption of the PZAC
2. Placing of road surfacing sound absorbing and / or sys-tems for reducing the speed of vehicles, ex. zones "30" installation systems speed detection, warning signs, use of roundabouts, traffic lights green waves (inter-ventions at the source)
3. Installation of noise barriers (interventions on the roads of propagation)
4. Substitution of windows in face exposed (interventions to the receptor, not applicable to quiet areas)
schools Lday>65 dB(A)
hospitals Lnight>55dB(A)
3.1.2 Agglomeration of Taranto
How did for Bari, the identification of hot spots was obtained by comparing the Lden value, as re-sulted from noise mapping activities, with the limits set by the Italian legislation through Decree 142/04. At the same time, however, were introduced new analysis tools that enhance the level of detail of the plan, both methodologically, to overcome the criticalities described in the introductory paragraph and strategically, in order to guide the planning according to the local context in which the mitigation actions are needed. In summary they are shown in the flow chart of Figure 2 and are substantially divided into the following stages:
a. conversion of the Italian noise limit values into the European descriptor Lden , for a
bet-ter comparability with the results of strategic noise mapping :
3 10 8 10 2 10 14 24 1 log 10 10 10 , 10 5 , 10 , lim , − ⋅ + ⋅ + ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ = + + LAeqnight day Aeq L day Aeq L den L (1)
where: LAeq, day and LAeq, night are the diurnal and night limit values according to Italian legis-lation (A-weighted equivalent sound pressure level).
After conversion Lden,lim is equal to 62,7 dB(A) for residential buildings and 47,7 for sensi-tive ones.
b. criticality and priority ranking of the hot spots through the index “ECUden” which takes into account not only the highest level of noise at façade points but also the number and type of people exposed (sensitive or residential receptors):
10 1 10 10 c i L L N i den Log ECU + =
∑
= (2)where: N is the number of building inhabitants, Li is the value Lden of most exposed façade
and Lc is a correction factor ( +5 dB(A) for schools and +10 dB(A) for hospitals);
Figure 2– Flow-chart of hot spots analysis for short-medium term strategies
c. aggregation of critical receptors in homogeneous areas, according to the noise sources that are responsible of the critical issues. For the aggregation was used this methodology :
• the ECUden and the difference between the Lden at facade points and the corresponding
limit value for each building were calculated;
• a buffer width of 30 meters around all buildings having simultaneously ECUden>85
dB(A) and Lden-Lden,lim > 6 dB(A) was created, merging areas intersecting each other;
• the areas were ordered from the largest to the smallest value of ECUden : short term in-terventions on sensitive receptors and medium terms inin-terventions on residential ones were considered for the first ten classified.
d. evaluation of cost-benefit index (CBI) for the mitigation measures: after classification, these areas were then characterized in detail, acoustically and territorially, in order to
cali-brate consequently the different mitigation measures. The result of this process was the
defi-nition of several potential scenarios of rehabilitation. Each one was characterized by differ-ent mitigation measures or by differdiffer-ent combinations of them, for which were evaluated both technical and economic feasibility, through a cost-benefit index, as a function of the urban area in which are inserted. Once estimated the approximate cost of each measure, the relative cost-benefit index was calculated with the following expression:
e.
=
− (3)
IPpre and IPpost are priority indeces of the critical area respectively before and after the
inter-ventions of restoration, obtained as the sum of the priorities indices of individual buildings, which are calculated in turn as the product between the inhabitants of the i-th building Ri
and the difference between the Lden value at façade point and the noise limit value Lden,lim :
= ∗ ( ! " − ! ",$ %) (4)
In the case of sensitive buildings was introduced a penalty by multiplying Ri for 3 in the
case of schools and 4 in the case of hospitals.
f. Evaluation of people exposed after the action plan with simulation noise model: the best scenario for each critical area was reconstructed, choosing between those hypothesized, de-pending on the cost benefits index. Then the facade points calculation was re-launched in order to calculate the number of people exposed as a result of the chosen mitigation actions.
3.2 Estimate of the reduction in the number of people exposed to noise
The new calculation, performed by software as a result of planned work, shows that a good part of the number of people exposed to high levels of noise moves to the lower intervals.
In particular, considering the number of people exposed to Lden> 70 dB(A) and Lnight> 60 dB(A)
as those most subjects to the annoyance and sleep disturbance, the planned measures lead to a
re-duction in the exposure of 37% and 16% for respectively Lden and Lnight with reference to Bari, 58%
and 18% for Lden and Lnight with reference to Taranto.
Should be noted that the calculation on exposed after the action plan is underestimated, because it does not take into account the receptors inside sensitive buildings, although these represent a sub-stantial portion of the receptors for which they were planned interventions. This is due to the need to maintain consistency with the results of the MAS, which does not include the sensitive receptors.
4.
Conclusions
The paper showed two different modes for elaboration of PdA in case of methodological
critical-ity ( no Lden/Lnight limits, quiet and critical areas identification, etc.), by selecting the priority noise
abatement measures to be realized.
In addition, there is a difficulty to implement PdA due to lack of PZAC (and related PRAC) and BR, according to the Framework Law n.° 447/95 and the consequent decrees implementation, re-gional one too. This results in a severe difficulty in application of PdA, in absence of basic tools in the process of noise managing, control and abatement. Moreover, according to Legislative Decree n.° 194/05, local administrations are not obliged of transposing Noise Action Plans nor harmonizing them with mobility and transport plans or urbanistic plans.
Besides, the Municipalities of Bari and Taranto are competent authorities for major roads, but neither of them has complied with its obligations according to Legislative Decree 195/05.
The highlighted critical situations can be all attributed to the specific regional policy in application of Legislative Decree n° 194/05. The analysis of the national situation points out that in most cases Italian regions identified in local administrations the authority in charge of drawing up the MAS and the PdA. The above decision on the one hand can result in loss of regional methodology uni-formity in drawing up MAS and PdA, on the other hand can avoid a missing adoption of PdA fea-tures by local administrations as well as heterogeneity with other noise management instruments territory such as PZAC, noise reduction plans, mobility and transportation plans, etc.
In the Apulia region, we have an opposite situation: regional administration recognized Arpa Pu-glia as the only authority to draw up MAS and PdA for all regional territory. In consequence of this choice we have the positive effect of single methodology to comply with Decree 194/05 but we take the risk that PdA provisions could be ignored by local administrations and not integrated with noise management instruments provided under current national and regional regulations.
To ride over above mentioned critical situation, Arpa Puglia has demanded to regional admin-istration to release new regulation about the adoption of PdA provisions by local adminadmin-istrations.
REFERENCES
1 European Directive 2002/49/EC, relating to the assessment and management of environmental noise, 25th June 2002
2 Decreto Legislativo 19 agosto 2005, n. 194, Attuazione della direttiva 2002/49/CE relativa alla determina-zione e alla gestione del rumore ambientale (G.U.R.I. n. 222 del 23/9/2005)
3 Legge 26 ottobre 1995, n. 447, Legge quadro sull’inquinamento acustico (Suppl. Ord. n. 125 alla G.U.R.I. n. 254 del 30/10/1995).
4 Arpa Puglia, Mappa Acustica Strategica degli agglomerati di Bari e Taranto- available: http://www.arpa.puglia.it/web/guest/mas/
5 Arpa Puglia, Piano d’Azione degli agglomerati di Bari e Taranto- available: http://www.arpa.puglia.it/web/guest/pda/
6 Curcuruto, S., Lanciotti, E., Marsico, G., Sacchetti, F., Silvaggio R. and Vaccaro, L. The HUSH Project: activities for the harmonization of noise reduction action plans. Detection and evaluation of the existing conflicts among the European and the Italian national and regional legislation, Forum Acusticum, Aalborg, Denmark, (2011)
7 Silence Project, Practitioner handbook for local noise actions plans, available: http://www.silence-ip.org/ 8 NADIA Project , Deliverable 4 – “Noise Reductions Action Plans”, available http://www.nadia-noise.eu/
