There are many different means of road noise abatement, and they vary according to mitigation level required, material used, aesthetic requirements and landscape impact, etc. In general, the measures that are adopted for noise abatement are: noise barriers, porous asphalts, increase of the acoustic insulation of a façade (for instance by means of windows replacement), anti-noise treatment of tunnel portals and anti-noise joints.Noise mitigation measures can be quite expensive and usually are not considered a top priority in national policies, including environmental ones. This is because quite often it is not State’s duty to invest large amounts of money in these works and noise mitigation is handled by private companies managing roads that are forced to do so to fulfil law requirements. The underestimation of the issue is mainly due to a lack of knowledge both in the general public and in decision makers of the actual effects on human health of noise exposure, thus leading to the little attention that Governments give it compared to other pollutants, despite of the fact that noise is the second most dangerous pollutant after fine particular matter. OPTIMUS provides a multicriteria methodology useful for assessing the quantitative, objective, and unbiased parameters of baseline and low-noise asphalts, comparing alternative solutions, and monitoring their life cycle performances.
