New ISO standard for airport noise

There's a new international standard relating to the measurement of aircraft noise in the vicinity of airports.

ISO 20906:2009, Acoustics – Unattended monitoring of aircraft sound in the vicinity of airports is designed to assist regulators, professionals and researchers in their effort to measure and reduce noise around airports.

ISO 20906:2009 specifies:

* The typical application for a permanently installed sound-monitoring system around an airport

* Performance specifications for instruments and requirements for their unattended installation and operation, in order to determine continuously monitored sound pressure levels of aircraft sound at selected locations

* Requirements for monitoring the sound of aircraft operations at an airport

* Requirements for the quantities to be determined in order to describe the sound of aircraft operations

* Requirements for data to be reported and frequency of publication of reports

* A procedure for determining the expanded uncertainty of the reported data in accordance with ISO/IEC Guide 98-3, Uncertainty of measurement – Part 3: Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement (GUM: 1995).

Berthold Vogelsang, project leader and convenor of the ISO Working group which prepared the standard, comments:

"The environmental concerns of people living near airports is increasingly taken into account by governments, airport authorities and aviation companies.

"Manufacturers are developing quieter aircraft, governments are committing themselves to reduce noise around airports and plans to fight against noise pollution are being adopted.

"To achieve the objectives of such initiatives, regulators and aviation professionals need internationally agreed measuring tools and reference documents, ISO 20906 is a practical answer to this need."

More information can be obtained at www.iso.org