HOW TO ASSURE QUALITY OF NOISE MAPPING SOFTWARE? TWO APPROACHES EXPLAINED

Noise Mapping has gained additional momentum due to the European Directive initiative: The declared aim is to achieve greater harmonisation amongst Member States. Although the text achieves a fair harmonisation and standardisation of prediction calculation methods, indicators and mapping methodology, no attention is brought to the software tools that will have to be used. Nevertheless, the quality of these software tools, their usability, reliability and precision will be of tremendous importance if comparability of calculated results amongst Member States should be assured. The paper will first point out why quality assurance for Noise Mapping Software is needed and then give an overview of quality assurance techniques. In addition French and German normalisation efforts will be briefly explained and compared. (A) For the covering abstract see ITRD E113232.