How Asphalt Pavement Reduces Noise From Traffic & Highways
Learn how asphalt pavement reduces noise from traffic and highways and can positively impact your business, roadways, and traffic in the area. In addition to the many studies that show the lower noise level of asphalt compared to other pavement options like concrete, cement, composite, and stone mix.
From using unique asphalt materials for mixes that reduce the impact and noise of vehicles coming into contact with the road to creating porous asphalt with more air gaps, there are a variety of ways that asphalt can help reduce noise on roadways.
Choose asphalt pavement for your next paving project to save money and reduce noise pollution and disturbances near your business or organization.
Causes of traffic and highway noise:
- Volume of Traffic (number of vehicles on the road)
- Traffic Speed (Highway vs small road)
- Large Vehicles & Freight Trucks
- Lack of barriers (no sound guards or walls)
Quieter pavement improves the roads for urban and suburban use, including reducing noise pollution the neighborhoods near highways.
There are many ways to achieve quieter traffic on roadways, including road bordering sound barriers and walls, integrated vegetation in medians and bordering roads, vehicle noise controls such as mufflers, tire tread, and fans, and installing quieter pavement options such as porous and rubberized asphalt.
Implementing sound-reducing asphalt helps keep the noise level down on highways near residential areas, reduce noise in busy shopping centers and on highly trafficked roadways. Quieter residential neighborhoods tend to have higher property values compared to homes located near loud or busy highways and provide a better quality of living for residents of the area.
Asphalt pavement reduces noise from traffic and highways, allowing for advancements in infrastructure that don’t interrupt or disturb day to day life.
Environmental Impact
Additionally, rubberized asphalt reduces the environmental impact of paving by incorporating recycled materials and keeping roadways quieter to potentially reduce stress on wildlife and local ecosystems.
Porous asphalt allows water to seep through the pavement instead of sitting on top of the road in pools or puddles and creating dangerous driving conditions. This type of asphalt also reduces the need for drains and gutters.
Another environmental benefit of using asphalt pavement is that it can be made even more eco-friendly and recycled tired are mixed into the pavement. Rubberized asphalt reduces the overall environmental strain of paving roads, provides a way to reuse tires, and is significantly better at reducing noise that concrete cement and even standard asphalt mixes.
Asphalt pavement reduces noise from traffic and highways at and is much more cost effective than barrier walls, which can cost millions for small segments of roadways and may not provide as much noise reduction. In fact, noise tests using rubberized asphalt have shown a 50%-90% reduction in noise compared to traditional pavements!
Asphalt Noise-reducing Properties
Gap-graded or porous mixes of asphalt have been used more in road designs in the last decade to reduce the impact of highway noise.
Asphalt pavement is roughly as quiet as Portland cement concrete (PCC) is at half its distance. So, for example, a cement concrete road at 200 feet away is the same decibel of noise with traffic as a dense-graded asphalt mix at only 100 feet away from the listener.
Roadway noise is caused by “car tires trapping air between them and the road surface”, according to Wayne Jones, Asphalt Institute Senior Regional Engineer.
Quiet asphalt pavement can help reduce highway noise by as much as 7 decibels, according to a 2013 World Road Association-PIARC study. Double layer porous asphalt pavement is especially effective at reducing noise on roads that operate at over 45mph. A single layer of crack-resistant, rubberized asphalt is effective at reducing traffic noise, and has been implemented in many busy interstates across the U.S. for several decades.
Since open-graded asphalt is porous, meaning it has enough air gaps and empty spaces for water and air to permeate through the surface, it is especially effective in reducing traffic noise. The porous asphalt has more air voids to prevent trapped air between car tires and the road from causing as much noise.
Asphalt Noise Reduction Studies
There have been several studies and programs in the U.S. measuring the effectiveness of different types of asphalt to reduce highway and interstate traffic noise.
Open graded asphalt and rubberized asphalt offer more noise reduction when compared to traditional asphalt–which is still much quieter than concrete and other types of pavement. Variations on the different types of pavement tested can reduce noise as much as 3 to 5 decibels.
In an almost decade long asphalt study on I-80 in Davis, California, the open-graded or rubberized asphalt pavements provided a 4.3 dB(A) noise reduction when compared with the original asphalt pavement.
Similar asphalt noise reduction studies in Arizona, Kansas, and New Jersey, all found that porous asphalt and asphalt with added rubber had lower noise levels than standard asphalt and cement concrete pavement. Since asphalt pavement reduces noise from traffic and highways, it makes since to incorporate more open-graded and rubberized asphalt wherever possible.
Get Noise Reducing Asphalt
Advanced Pavement Technologies has been a leader in the asphalt maintenance industry for over 35 years and have experience installing noise reducing asphalt pavement for our clients.
We understand that finding a trustworthy, efficient, and competent asphalt contractor is extremely important to a business. Hire the right asphalt contractor to ensure you are reducing noise and environmental impact with commercial asphalt paving. We guarantee an excellent paving job that will last for years.
APTNJ provides asphalt services under one contractor. We perform asphalt installation and maintenance services, line striping, basin installation, asphalt repairs, and more. It is our passion to perform high quality services that exceed industry standards and meet the individual needs of our customers. Get a free asphalt quote for installation, repair, or maintenance now!
