EN standards for road traffic Noise Reducing Devices and railway Noise Barriers: state of the art

Started in the early 90’s, a first set of European (EN) Standards has been drafted by the CEN/TC226/WG6 working group of experts: this set of standards includes, under a global product standard (EN14388), references to acoustic and non-acoustic supporting standards. In more than 20 years, many parts of this set have been revised, thanks to new assessment and /or measurement methods, the most important challenge being to establish measurement methods that are completely in line with the effective intended use of the devices, i.e. outside buildings, either in free-field conditions or in more complex situations with multiple reflections. On the other hand, another working group has been started as the CEN/TC256/SC1/WG40, on a similar base, but adapted to the specific intended use along railways. This paper will present the state of those two set of standards as of today, and in which direction they will be revised in the coming future, thanks to the outcome of new researches as QUIESST, amongst others. The final objective of those standards is to improve the use of efficient and sustainable noise reducing devices along the highway and railway networks.