High Speed Railway Noise: Assessment of Mitigation Measures

Summary

Stringent limit values have been introduced in the HS-TSI for the pass-by noise of HS trains, as demonstrated by the NOEMIE project. Moreover, as further reductions of these limits are already planned, new designs of high speed rolling stock will have to have a lower acoustic signature to be TSI compliant. In that context, SNCF get involved, with some industrials partners, in different R&D projects that aims at the development and assessment of solutions, both for the track and the rolling stock. This has lead, in october 2006, to a field test measurement campaign on a French High Speed Line. This test involved a TGV trainset equipped with wheel damping rings on some motor and trailer bogies, and a section of track equipped with rail dampers.

A cumulated efficiency up of about 3 dB have been achieved at 300 km/h. Due to the high speed, the solution dedicated to the reduction of the wheel acoustic radiation had the strongest effect on the overall pass-by noise ( 2 dB). It has also been highlighted that the noise attenuation is directly dependent on the wheel and rail tread unevenness.