London Borough of Tower Hamlets Noise Map

NoiseMap was used to create the first noise map of a London Borough in 2001. The noise map is based on a three-dimensional computer model of the Borough and includes the 50 busiest roads and all the buildings alongside them including the Tower of London and Canary Wharf.

As the map is based on a computer model, the Borough can make changes to the model to see what effect it has on noise levels.  This lets them test the effect of developments in the Borough and thus plan noise mitigation strategies. The model can also be extended to include other roads and other noise sources when the resources become available.
The model was created in a series of 500 metre square tiles, each corresponding to an Ordnance Survey 1:1250 digital map tile.  The separate tiles are joined automatically in the software to produce contiguous maps covering any particular area.  To avoid edge effects, the twenty-four squares surrounding each tile are included when the noise calculations are made: this surround margin can be increased when required to ensure that there are no discontinuities at the joins between tiles.
The maps are stores electronically in a format that can be imported into the Borough’s GIS system.  This allows the Borough to create GIS applications to extract information such as the noise level at a particular address or postcode, the areas exposed to a particular level of noise, and if the GIS contains population data, information on numbers of people exposed to a particular level of noise.

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