Citizens’ Participation in the Noise Action Planning

The complexity of noise mapping and action planning, the free interpretation of Article 8.7. (Action plans – Public Participation) and Article 9.2. (Information to the Public – Information about Noise Action Plans) of the Directive 2002/49/EC Environmental Noise Directive (END), the lack of a statement about public participation within the achievement of END tasks, and difficulties with the general public’s understanding of the noise maps and action plans requires a discussion about the willingness and opportunities of citizens to provide additional information and feedback about noise issues to the city authorities; as well as about their participation in the establishment of noise action plans. The aim of this paper is to find out the level of citizens’ participation motivation within the noise action planning. The research goals are achieved through the organization and conduct of face-to-face interviews to study the readiness of citizens to participate online in surveys about noise, to use smart phone applications in order to measure noise pollution, and to provide the results to city authorities. The results are compared with similar participation level studies of earlier online discussions about noise. The report concludes with a proposal for optimization of public participation, via a horizontal participation model, in the noise action planning.