These are radars that target the noisiest vehicles. Seven communities have applied to test these radars of a new kind, including the city of Paris which has just installed two in the streets of Avron (20th arrondissement) and Cardinet (17th).
Above the heavy traffic, hanging from a lamppost, a strange antenna appeared on rue Cardinet, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris: a narrow plate about a meter long, full of microphones and connected to a camera and a data processing unit. This is one of the new sound radars in Paris.
Lucile Pinel, director of MicrodB, explains that sounds and images are processed together. ” It is the multiplicity of microphones that makes it possible to isolate the noise of a vehicle well, because you hear, there is a significant noise context. So we manage to extract a single vehicle that passes under the device. There is also a context camera, which sees the scene from above and makes it possible to attest to the presence of the vehicle. »
A maximum authorized decibel threshold
The device can therefore detect the license plate of anyone who, in the urban jungle of cars, trucks, motorcycles or scooters, exceeds the authorized noise threshold. A threshold that should be set around 90 decibels. By comparison, a truck is allowed to emit up to 84 decibels. The World Health Organization recommends less than 53 decibels.
” It is really a very important noise, that is to say that at 90 decibels, conversations stop, it is not possible to have a normal activity. This is what we regularly see in the street, we are sometimes forced to stop speaking because the noise will drown out the voice, explains Olivier Chrétien, head of the environmental quality unit at the Paris City Hall. So we will consider that beyond 90 decibels, we have abnormal behavior that disturbs the neighborhood. On this ground, we can verbalize it. »
Up to 8 months less healthy life expectancy
The fine is set at 135 euros. The objective is to track down incivilities. Put an end to urban rodeos or excessive acceleration, for example. Because more than just a nuisance, noise is a public health issue.
” Just for road noise, it’s eight months less healthy life expectancy for Parisians. And we know that an unbridled motorbike circulating in Paris at night can wake up to 10,000 people, recalls Dan Lert, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of ecological transition. The health impacts are enormous, and so we decided to experiment with these first two sound radars to reduce noise pollution in Paris. »
Within the European Union, 12,000 people die prematurely from noise pollution each year. It remains to be seen whether these radars will be really effective against noise. The experiment should last a total of two years in France. Initially, it will be a question of breaking in and approving these new devices. And by the spring of 2023, drivers can be ticketed.