6. Necessity and difficulty of a global approach

As we have seen, actions aimed at reducing vehicle noise and those dealing with road traffic noise have often developed independently, whether in terms of regulations, predictive models or measurement methods. The inevitable consequence is a lack of clarity in the approaches and tools developed and, above all, less effective solutions.

As part of European regulation EC/540/2014 on vehicle noise, the European Parliament has voted two amendments to take account of the contribution of road surfacing in the overall strategy to reduce environmental nuisance. The recitals state that road traffic noise is a complex issue, influenced by multiple sources and in particular by road infrastructure. This is a very important first step, which makes it possible to consider that the vehicle and the tire are not the only levers for action to reduce noise. In fact, the road surface...