IMAGINE Rail Noise Sources – A Practical Methodology

Summary

European Commission Directive 2002/49/EC requires that Common Assessment methods for the modelling of noise from road, rail, aviation and industry shall be established by the Commission. The research project HARMONOISE was funded under the European 5^th Framework programme in order to commence this process. The research has been continued through the 6^th Framework project IMAGINE to a point where the delivered suite of procedures, algorithms and databases may be implemented as required by the Commission. This paper describes the overall IMAGINE approach in general terms. It then focuses on the development of a practical methodology for the rail-specific elements of the model. These comprise a source term database of examples and default information for individual rail vehicles, and a process for combining this data into traffic source lines that interface with the IMAGINE propagation model.