Highway noise abatement project of Korea Highway Corporation

As a fundamental infrastructure for continuous economic growth, a highway system in Korea has been expanded drastically. However its environmental impacts including noise have been caused by the construction and operation and the number of complaints and lawsuits against highway noise is also steeply increasing and appropriate mitigation measures for the compensation are requested by the people exposed to high noise levels. Korea Highway Corporation, which is a major highway developer in Korea, started a 2-year highway noise abatement project. One of the purposes of the project is the field survey of the present noise pollution level and the effectiveness of the current noise mitigation measures including noise barriers. For any residential or commercial region exceeding the legal limit, appropriate mitigation measures should be suggested in the final report. The other purpose of the project is the improvement of the prediction model of highway noise. It includes the measurement and analysis of the highway noise for various types of roads and environments. The results of the measurement are compared with the noise levels predicted by highway noise prediction models including domestic and foreign ones and any recommendation to improve the accuracy of the models should be provided.