ABSTRACT

The Workshop to develop a Roadmap to Quiet Highways was held September 14-16, 2004, on the campus of Purdue University. The program consisted of

• presentations to describe the state-of-practice for quiet highways,
• multiple breakout sessions and discussion forums to identify the key technological gaps in quiet pavement policy, construction, maintenance, analysis (measurement and prediction), research, and design practice,
• identification of the activities required to implement quieter highways, and
• identification of potential funding sources and leadership for the effort.

This document has been excerpted from the more complete FHWA-HEP-05-007, Tire/Pavement Noise Strategic Planning Workshop: Proceedings and Roadmap. The Roadmap to Quieter Highways lays out a plan to answer key research questions, describes a framework for initiating potential policy changes, and identifies the key issues for designing, building, and operating quieter highways. The destination of the Roadmap for Quieter Pavement is a reliable design specification for pavements that are safe, durable, and cost competitive and that are substantially quieter than existing pavement over their entire design life. When this design goal is achieved, policy changes may be initiated to permit the use of quiet pavement as an alternative for noise mitigation.