Noise is an important environmental consideration for highway planners and designers. Transportation agencies measure different aspects of highway noise to determine or predict community impacts during urban planning. However, measurement instrumentation and procedures have varied from program to program and agency to agency. Precise, uniform, field measurement practice allows for valid comparison of results from similar studies performed by a variety of transportation practitioners and researchers. Guidance is provided within this page on determining existing-noise in the vicinity of a highway or determining vehicle noise emissions for use with highway noise prediction models; highway barrier insertion loss; noise reduction due to buildings in the vicinity of a highway, and Highway-related occupational noise exposure.
