Suchergebnisse

Public involvement in the planning process is a prerequisite for democratic outcomes. Environmental issues regarding impacts of sound tend to be limited to mere exercises in noise estimation and guideline values. Such information is difficult for the layman to understand, and such a lack of understanding produces shortcomings in the democratic process. In addition to decibel calculations interpretable by experts, the sonic environment also can be described in more accessible ways. This article reports on a concrete planning case, the widening of the railway through Åkarp in southern Sweden, where the usual calculations of equivalent noise and maximum noise are undergoing critical analysis. In order to complement the noise description, a new measurement has been devised, "high noise time," which is equal to the total time per 24 hours in which trains pass through a place without stopping. The frequency and duration of the passing of trains may be a better measure of disturbance than the maximum noise peak per passage or the equivalent (average) noise level distributed over 24 hours. Film technology also has been developed as a method for recording the frequency and duration of train passage.

Particle emissions are a drawback of rail transport. This work is a comprehensive presentation of recent research into particle emissions from rail vehicles. Both exhaust and non-exhaust particle emissions are considered when examining particle characteristics such as PM10, and PM2.5 concentration levels, size, morphology, composition, as well as adverse health effects, current legislation, and available and proposed solutions for reducing such emissions. High concentration levels in enclosed rail traffic environments are reported and some toxic effects of the particles. We find that only a few limited studies have examined the adverse health effects of non-exhaust particle emissions and that no relevant legislation exists. Thus further research in this area is warranted. ; This is an electronic version of an article published in Critical reviews in environmental science and technology. Critical reviews in environmental science and technology is available online at: www.tandfonline.com. Updated from submitted to published. QC 20130116

International audience ; Reform of the railway in Europe, which is based on a split between network and operating, is deeply linked with the improvements of the quality of service of the railway network. It is indeed clear that competition on the network will only work if network activities are reliable, fair und optimally priced. On this point rail operation in Europe remains connected through a fragmented network in which it was still difficult for the engines to cross national borders. Interoperability must be improved. Designed to strengthen the European integration, interoperability is the right concept for thinking open and competitive systems of transport. The European Commission (EC) decided to set up directly a single standard for a signalling system, the European Rail Traffic Management System. Thus, the EC was making the choice of a radical innovation for all Member States rather than promoting the extension of an existing national system.Why was such a direct action taken in the complex framework of rail signalling system? Will this action strengthen competition?

International audience ; Reform of the railway in Europe, which is based on a split between network and operating, is deeply linked with the improvements of the quality of service of the railway network. It is indeed clear that competition on the network will only work if network activities are reliable, fair und optimally priced. On this point rail operation in Europe remains connected through a fragmented network in which it was still difficult for the engines to cross national borders. Interoperability must be improved. Designed to strengthen the European integration, interoperability is the right concept for thinking open and competitive systems of transport. The European Commission (EC) decided to set up directly a single standard for a signalling system, the European Rail Traffic Management System. Thus, the EC was making the choice of a radical innovation for all Member States rather than promoting the extension of an existing national system.Why was such a direct action taken in the complex framework of rail signalling system? Will this action strengthen competition?

International audience ; Reform of the railway in Europe, which is based on a split between network and operating, is deeply linked with the improvements of the quality of service of the railway network. It is indeed clear that competition on the network will only work if network activities are reliable, fair und optimally priced. On this point rail operation in Europe remains connected through a fragmented network in which it was still difficult for the engines to cross national borders. Interoperability must be improved. Designed to strengthen the European integration, interoperability is the right concept for thinking open and competitive systems of transport. The European Commission (EC) decided to set up directly a single standard for a signalling system, the European Rail Traffic Management System. Thus, the EC was making the choice of a radical innovation for all Member States rather than promoting the extension of an existing national system.Why was such a direct action taken in the complex framework of rail signalling system? Will this action strengthen competition?

The aim of this paper is to present an overview of the research concerning human response to vibration conducted in the EU FP7 CargoVibes project. The European Union funded project CargoVibes involved ten partners from eight nations and ran from April 2011 to April 2014. The project was concerned with railway-induced ground-borne vibration affecting residents close to freight lines, with one work package that investigated human response to vibration, including sleep disturbance, community annoyance, and the production of a best practice guide for evaluating response. Laboratory trials at the University of Gothenburg were used to measure the effects of vibration on sleep. Physiological and psychological impacts of vibration exposure were found. TNO led a meta-analysis (N = 4129) to determine exposure-response relationships for railway vibration, with existing data for community response supplemented with field studies in the Netherlands and Poland. The University of Salford led production of a guidance document that presents the state of the art regarding vibration measurement and assessment. Specific topics in the guide include human perception, evaluation methods, annoyance, sleep impacts, and non-exposure factors. The outcomes presented in this paper represent a significant advance in the understanding of the human response to railway vibration and a step towards much needed harmonization of assessment methods.

Finland has one of the last fully monopolistic gambling sectors in Europe. Unlike in most Western European countries, the monopoly is also consolidated and enjoys a wide support as opposed to license-based competition. This paper analyses whether this preference for monopoly provision is due to the particularities of the Finnish society or rather to those of the Finnish gambling sector. We do this by comparing public discourses in media texts (N=143) from 2014 to 2017 regarding monopolies operating in alcohol retail, rail traffic and gambling sectors. The results show that gambling appears to be special even in the Finnish national context. While the Finnish alcohol retail and railroad traffic markets have been liberalised during the study period, the gambling monopoly has been concurrently strengthened despite similar political and international pressures towards dismantling. The discussion suggests that the differing outcomes reflect the varying positions of monopolies, their stakeholders and the justifications put forward. Intertwined stakeholder interests in the gambling sector appear to amplify consensus politics and set gambling apart from the other cases.

Finnish state monopolies have been in a state of change during the mid-2010s. This paper focuses on the developments of the alcohol retail, railroad and gambling sectors during this period by analysing media texts (N=143) from 2014 to 2017 and with the concepts of Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework (MSF). Results show how the convergence of politics, policies and problematizations opened policy windows for government initiatives to liberalize alcohol retail and railroad traffic markets while consolidating the gambling monopoly. The differing outcomes are surprising given that they all took place under the same liberal right-wing government, as well as under obligations to dismantle monopolies in the European Union and in accordance with international commerce treaties. The explanation unfolds by looking at the stakeholders and their justifications. Differing outcomes also reflect the varying trajectories through which the policy processes proceeded, although they seem to conclude with consensus and at least a semblance of agreement between the different parties when a decision is reached. The study gives insight into how state monopolies are negotiated in contemporary Europe. ; Peer reviewed

The role of rail in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) changed considerably in the latter years of the twentieth century. Although some upgrading has occurred, most SSA networks outside South Africa are still operating to the standards to which they were originally constructed. To encourage the commercialization of the railways and reduce the burden on government finances, several countries concessioned their rail system from the 1990's on. However, rail infrastructure improvements which encourage modal shift generate benefits from lower road congestion and maintenance costs, fewer road accidents, less pollution, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, many governments in Africa have therefore taken a renewed interest in rehabilitating and upgrading their railways, or in constructing new ones. They desire to improve their logistics efficiency and promote a green mode of transport that is less carbon intensive than road. The railways in Africa can be divided into four broad groups: mineral railways; new railways; legacy railways; and commuter railways. This note reviews the current situation and discusses the challenges and possible approaches to address them.

Noise legislation in Austria does not provide an assessment of the cumulative effect of noise from different sources. The desire of citizens for a total noise assessment is getting stronger. Within the pilot project &ldquo ; Gesamtlä ; rmbetrachtung&rdquo ; (Total Noise Investigation) Innsbruck, data from 1031 face-to-face interviews were correlated with exposure data from road, rail and air traffic noise. The interviews were selected in clusters according to the exposure combinations of these three sources. In addition to exposure-response relationships, it has also been found that the annoyance response to air and rail traffic noise is independent of the background noise from road traffic. The total noise annoyance response shows a cumulative effect in each source considered. From the source specific exposure-response relationships, a total noise assessment model based on the annoyance equivalents model was developed. This model is more suitable than the dominant source model and thus also considerable for legal application.