Final conference in Budapest

presentations

Impression - On 25 October the Imagine Final Conference was held in Budapest, just after the celebration of 50 years Hungarian Revolution. Despite alarming pictures on the television the city was fairly quiet and 140 people decided to participate in the Final Conference. Alltogether they represented 25 countries over Europe and even Japan and the USA were represented. The Conference was held in a stylish university building giving view over the Danube.

The morning presentations - In the morning the work package leaders gave overview presentations of the work carried out in the project. The structure of the project is explained by a scheme showing the separation of sources and propagation, and the need of meteo classes to determine the Lden.

An introduction was given by the EC via the JRC and by the Imagine scientific coordinator explaining the political and scientific context of the methods.

The introductions were followed by presentations by the Imagine work package leaders, making a comparison between the currently used data for the interim methods and the data needed for the Imagine methdods. The structure of the Imagine source methods is given. And the databases are explained as well as the available default values. As a conclusion the benefits of each method are listed.

- Road source description

- Demand and traffic flow modelling

- Rail noise sources

- Industrial noise

- Aircraft noise

- Propagation and meteo

- Measurement of Lden

- Benefits overview

The afternoon � In the afternoon 3 parallel sessions were held simultaneously:

- Noise mapping

- Data (road, rail, industry and traffic flow)

- Aircraft

In the sessions there was time for explanation in the depth on all subjects, and time for discussion. All sessions had about the same number of participants.

Noise mapping session

- Meteorological model, data & preprocessing

- Measurement of Lden

- The P2P show

- Modelling requirements, data collection & GIS

- Estimation of exposed populations

Data session

- Database Road

- Database Rail

- Database Industry

- Road source data

- Traffic flow data

- Rail source data

- Measurement methods Industry

- Measurement methods Road

- Measurement methods traffic flow

- Measurement methods Rail

Aircraft session

- How does the aircraft model work, Advantages of the Imagine model

- Structure of source models � measurement methods

- The aircraft propagation model

- How to convert current data

- Flight tests, validation of the aircraft model

- Helena, a new tool for helicopter noise footprint calculation

Discussion session

In the discussion session at the end of the day the following points were mentioned:

• to formalize the Imagine results a new Annex II in the Noise Directive is difficult because there's no official document to refer to. Standardisation by CEN would be a better way although this will take a few years
• the Imagine project has produced excellent results. Considering the fact that the Imagine methods are the only possible harmonised methods, standardisation is required. Funding for documentation and benchmarking of the P2P model is needed.
• First the implementation of the propagation part is needed. The calculation time is no problem, but the DLL must be described in a document. Experts of each Member State must have access to the routines.
• European standards take a long time. Use the time to go further in the open technical parts simultaniously.
• Not only a document for software development is needed but also updating of the changes which occur in the mean time, and during the development.
• For the development after Imagine a contract is needed in stead of a project. 
• For a aircraft database political will and political money is needed since measuring flight characteristics is very expensive.
• The interest of partners in private or public projects is different. With privately financed projects the results will remain private.
• The methods are excellent. What frightens still is the actual making of noise maps. For the action plans it would be very useful to go forward with the Imagine methods because the Imagine methods can be helpful in the action planning process.
• The Imagine methods move forward at a much higher level than only for strategic noise maps. The methods can be used at the level required.

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Dissemination

The activities in this work package aim at acceptance and easy implementation of the deliverables of other work packages and those from the Harmonoise projects, in order to allow a smooth and harmonised process of noise mapping and noise action planning in all member states. The acceptance and easy implementation will be fed by active links to other platforms as ICAO, ECAC Doc 29, WG/AEN, X2-Noise.

In order to reach a large audience of end-users, several dissemination activities are planned:

• this website with forum
• an electronic newsletter with attracts attention to new deliverables and events
• a product folder
• Workshops in 2004 and a final conference in 2006

• Slides IMAGINE workshop Prague [11-10-2004]


• D1 Website - Imagine Deliverable [11-05-2004]