Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of different types of road surfaces on traffic noise levels.

Calculation of Road Traffic Noise (CRTN) provides advice on appropriate road surface corrections to be applied within noise assessments. However, this advice does not currently extend to the range of proprietary thin bituminous surfacing materials, commonly regarded as a low-noise surfacing, which emerged in the late 1990’s. There is additional advice to CRTN procedures in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges in the noise and vibration standard HD213. Revised in 2011, HD213 sets out an example methodology which can be used to determine appropriate road surface corrections for low-noise surfaces.