Abstract:
Traffic noise is an important branch of the environment pollution which deeply affects the population
and for that reason it has been included in the set of pavement performance indicators.
Nevertheless, the knowledge on the environmental impact of the existing surface pavement layers is
very limited, particularly for what respects to tyre/road noise of thin layers. These layers are at the
present time widely used in a great extent with rubberized asphalt both in urban and rural roads
especially in the north of Portugal due to environmental concerns. In this paper the comparison of
the tyre/road noise (Lmax) generated in roads with thin surface layers is made. The noise levels
generated by light and heavy vehicles are set according to the Statistical Pass-By Method (SPB) of
which test methods is described in the standard ISO 11819-1:1997. At management level the
information provided by tyre/road noise tests is essential to support environmentally sustainable
construction and maintenance alternatives. Furthermore, at project level, the results give some
insight about the relation surface layers/traffic composition.
