Rail noise control in Switzerland: Legislation, environment, politics and finances

A detailed analysis of the measures necessary to comply with the comparitively strict Swiss rail noise control legislation demonstrated that it is not feasible to attain the required threshold levels in all cases. In terms of noise control barriers, our alternative strategy therefore includes further criteria: efficiency and minimization of negative effects. Of these criteria, efficiency, which is determined by a cost-benefit index, is by far the most important. As a result of this strategy, we have been able to achieve a noise reduction of 70% with costs of only 20% of that which would have been necessary to attain fully the legislated threshold levels. Further studies are under way to include operational measures and vehicle noise control in our cost-benefit strategy. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited