Using updated roadway construction noise model acoustical noise data for simplified construction noise predictions.

In 2006 the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued the Roadway Construction Noise Model (RCNM) for use in predicting noise levels from construction activities, and this tool is still in wide use today among practitioners for evaluating construction noise for a variety of project types. The original RCNM included basic acoustical data for 57 different types of common construction equipment which was collected mostly in the late 1990s and early 2000s. More recently an effort was made to collect more detailed acoustical data for a wider range of more modern construction equipment for an updated version of RCNM (version 2.0). The new RCNM 2.0, runs on a new user interface platform, which may have resulted in a lower use rate by practitioners. This paper summarizes the updated construction equipment acoustical data collected for RCNM 2.0, a brief comparison to older data such as from the oroginal RCNM, and a more simplified, spreadsheet-based prediction methodology.