The AITPM newsletter recently covered a story about how much more attention is being given to landscaping and noise reduction on major road projects.

An Australian association of acoustical consultants, recently expanded their territory by including New Zealand.

We spoke to two consultants Alex Campbell – Infrastructure sector leader technical director SLR Consulting, and Mark Russel – Lead engineering on the West Connex project and also from SLR Consulting

Mark notes there are differences in state requirements for sound barriers.

There are some significant differences in criteria. For example in NSW criteria used as a different descriptor to what's Victoria and some parts of Queensland users. They also have different methods of optimizing barriers and optimizing heights of barriers. New South Wales has a very robust and technical approach to the assessment of road noise. Is a little bit simpler in other states. [30.4]

Transparent barriers have been suggested in some locations

The downside with transparent barriers they that are generally are a Perspex material, is the graffiti and actual maintenance of the barrier. So they tend to get scratched or the transparency reduces over time and that doesn't appear as nice as other barriers do. So sometimes in some projects they use in combination with a solid barrier below and the Perspex on top to allow the over shut it shadow or was to reduce any overshadowing issues.