National Academies Press: OpenBook

A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model (2010)

Chapter: Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire ." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22908.
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E-1 APPENDIX E. SAMPLE QUESTIONNAIRE Transportation hubs are essential to commerce and community activity and an integral part of the surrounding environment. Schools, hospitals, residences, and businesses often exist within the vicinity of airports. Highways and passenger and freight railroad lines lead into and around airports. As a result, rarely does one transportation source dominate the environmental impact in and around the airport. Despite this relatively close proximity, the standard course of action is to qualify airport expansion projects and noise and emissions mitigation decisions using single-modal impact. Questionnaire Introduction Availability of a multimodal noise and emissions model would help inform airport and public policymakers charged with evaluating and making decisions on expanding transportation facilities. The purpose of this study is to create a framework for developing a tool that would allow for the assessment of the noise and air quality impacts on the population from each transportation source, assess the total costs and impacts, and assist in the design and implementation of mitigation strategies. This model would enable more efficient use of federal, state, and local funds. In addition to public sector entities, this capability would be made available to airports, airport consultants, and others as a framework for conducting environmental assessments for regulatory, business, and community purposes. The objective of research project 02-09 is to produce a comprehensive Model Development Plan (MDP) that will guide future development (by others) of a model to facilitate integrated quantification of multimodal noise and emissions, as well as economic analysis of alternative scenarios. This questionnaire is an element of the market research to assess the viability and utility of that multimodal environmental model and help in its formulation. The market research will gather information about customers and the market. Customers are the future user communities for the multimodal noise and emissions model, including consultants involved in transportation planning, state and federal agencies that provide the oversight for these modes, and office staff of regional transportation administrations that organize/fund specific projects. Therefore, it is vital to seek input from a broad cross- section of the transportation and environmental communities.

E-2 QUESTIONNAIRE Additional space is provided at the end of the questionnaire for your responses. Respondent Information Name: Affiliation: Telephone: Email: A. Utility 1. Who would use a multimodal noise and emissions model? 2. For what kinds of projects is the model best suited? 3. At what stage of the environmental/design process would it be used?

E-3 4. How would you use the model? 5. What output is desired? 6. How could the model improve decision making? B. Current Thinking on the End State The cornerstone of the project approach to the Model Development Plan (MDP) is a clear definition of the end state. The end state is the ultimate objective for the multimodal noise and emissions modeling capability. The end state defines the requirements (databases, input/output processes, algorithms, etc) for multimodal planning at the local, regional, and national levels. The end state is the reference point to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of current states of the art in noise and emissions modeling. Exhibit E-1 describes the current thinking on the end state for the multimodal noise and emissions model. 7. What do you like about the proposed end state?

E-4 8. What’s wrong with the proposed end state? 9. What’s missing from the proposed end state? 10. What are your ideas for a better end state? C. Current Thinking on the Build Sequence Achieving the envisioned end state would require a major expenditure of funds and could take many years to complete. Rather than initiating a single, large-scale effort to design and develop the end state, a more realistic approach, consistent with feasible funding streams and practical stakeholder needs, would be to approach the end state in a series of steps, each step providing an improvement to some facet of the overall model. It is important for the architecture of the model to be sufficiently flexible so as to allow for a scalable roadmap towards a future end state. Exhibit E-2 describes the current thinking on the model-build sequence to take us from the current state of noise and emission modeling to the desired end state. 11. What do you like about the proposed build sequence?

E-5 12. What’s wrong with the proposed build sequence? 13. What’s missing from the proposed build sequence? 14. What are your ideas for a better build sequence? 15. How would you recommend building the multimodal noise and emissions model?

E-6 D. Issues and Concerns 16. What hurdles face the development of a multimodal noise and emissions model? 17. What concerns do you have about this project? Submitted completed questionnaire to tom.connor@wyle.com.

E-7 Additional space for your responses: Submitted completed questionnaire to tom.connor@wyle.com.

E-8 Exhibit E-1 -- Current Thinking on the Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model End State The proposed end state is a dynamic source (airplane, automobile, truck, marine vessel, etc.) simulation model with benefits evaluator to convert noise exposure and air quality changes into environmental costs. The model will simulate the sound propagation and air pollutant emissions for moving sources. The model will meet the emissions and noise assessment requirements (regulatory and policy) of every agency involved in an integrated regional planning process. It will include a highly modular design so that the model can be universally coupled to a wide range of other transportation planning tools, such as traffic simulation models (e.g. SIMMOD, TRANSIMS, etc.). The ultimate requirement for noise would consist of a time-history of the one-third octave band spectrum produced by each vehicle operation. When combined with numbers of operations of the different vehicle types, the model would: ● Calculate any noise metric for any transportation source; ● Propagate sound over any terrain, surface, barrier, structural effects (urban canyon reverberation, etc.) and through any meteorological condition; ● Compute that propagation with a precision that is proportional to the effort spent on terrain/meteorological input (will vary by type of project); ● Include complete and validated transportation sources databases; ● Integrate background noise estimation; ● Offer the level of accuracy that meets or exceeds any regulatory requirement; and ● Provide second-by-second noise. For emissions, the model would: ● Predict fuel consumption which would serve as a basis for energy usage (needs to take into account the different fuel types); ● Provide emissions of both criteria pollutants and Greenhouse Gases (GHG); ● Predict emissions by specific modes (e.g., acceleration, takeoff, etc.) and equipment type (e.g., light-duty vehicles, Boeing 737-200, etc.); and ● Provide second-by-second emissions. For Air Quality, the model would: ● Generate second-by-second atmospheric concentrations; ● Be able to model both transport and chemical transformations for characterized pollutants including Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) and particulate matter (PM); and ● Take into account structural effects such as building wake effects, urban canyon effects, tunnels, etc.

E-9 Figure E-1 is a simple schematic of the proposed end state. The attributes of this model would include: ● Centralized source database (vehicle performance, noise, and emissions); ● Common input requirements (where practical); ● Uniform input processes; ● Harmonized algorithms (e.g., sound propagation); ● Harmonized modules (e.g., atmospheric dispersion); ● Unified output processes; ● Compatible output parameters (e.g., metrics); ● Noise and emissions screening tools; ● Benefits evaluator to convert changes in noise exposure and air quality into environmental costs; and ● Highly modular in design.

E-10 Figure E-1. Simple schematic of multimodal noise and emissions model end state

E-11 Exhibit E-2 -- Current Thinking on the Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model Build Sequence The Model Development Plan (MDP), which this project will produce, will include the roadmap of how we get from where we are now with the current models and development projects to the end state of multimodal model design with emphasis on: ● Cost effectiveness; ● Technical feasibility; ● Acceptability to the regulating agencies; ● International credibility (i.e., compliance with international technical standards and recommended practices); ● Scalability (i.e., flexible architecture and modular design to support airport-centric up to regional applications); ● Analytical proficiency (capability to support alternatives and mitigation analyses); and ● Responsiveness (flexible to changing demands). The roadmap is a sequence of model builds, and the task is to choose the order of builds that would best achieve the above-listed design goals. The current thinking on the preferred model build sequence is guided by the phrase: “Think big, start small, and act now.” This model form meets the end state objective and the ground rules that are set forth in the overall approach. The build sequence is predicated on giving the users and agencies the tool that they need within expandable system architecture. The builds and associated rationale are provided in Table E-1. The third column in Table E-1 offers rationale to support the current thinking on the recommended build, which can be summarized as follows: 1. Because of the prevailing “stovepipe” culture, the first build provides some basic capability at relatively low cost. A post-processor is justified because it simply takes output from the existing tools and combines it in ways that should be helpful to multimodal planning. The first build is an entry-level capability to get the various stakeholders familiarized with the environmental effects of other modes. 2. The premise of the second build is that the stakeholders would see utility in what the first build provides and would prefer a tool that is easier to use; thus a shell program. The stakeholders of ground-based modes (road, rail, and transit) would be amenable to harmonizing noise computation modules after they have had some experience with the first build. The timing for initiating this build would be subsequent to the planned Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) release of Traffic Noise Model (TNM) Version 3 in the early 2010 timeframe. 3. The third build draws on the stakeholder experiences in the application of the first two builds with the introduction of capabilities that are intended to enhance the practicality of the model for their typical projects. Based on some of the discussions in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT) Design

E-12 Review Group (DRG), it is believed that users will want noise and emissions screening tools. 4. The fourth build is the entry to new concepts for many of the stakeholders; namely, simulation modeling and benefit (impact) valuation. This build is a “research” version to provide the stakeholders with the opportunity to evaluate the simulation capability while awaiting interagency agreement on how to apply impact evaluations in environmental assessments. The build is also partially predicated on the timing of the Department of Defense (DOD) noise simulation model development. DOD is to release the Advanced Acoustic Model (AMM) in the coming months and that should provide a few years for the simulation capability to mature in the user community in time for this build.

E-13 TABLE E-1 Current Thinking on Model Build Sequence Build Description Rationale Schematic 1 Develop a post-processor to combine outputs of the executions of each of the standard noise and/or air quality models used for each transportation mode. Elements of this build:  Produces common outputs, such as, DNL and combined emission inventories.  Includes ability to produce the standard output (metric) of each of the models.  Incorporates feedback loops for iterative assessments, such as, integrated analysis of highway sound barrier design.  The user is responsible for keeping current in the versions of the standard tools. Agencies’ acceptance expected because:  Draws from agencies’ ongoing model development projects.  No invasive changes to existing models  Produces output required by current agencies’ regulations and policies  Cost effective because:  Draws from agencies’ ongoing model development projects.  Allows users to perform integrated analyses using existing noise and emissions engines.  Existing GIS tools can easily facilitate this effort. 2 1. Create a harmonized ground (including marine) noise computation module from the existing tools, which was recommended in the original ACRP problem statement. This build would take advantage of the existing TNM infrastructure, but would include rail (including horns and other warning devices) and marine sources. Agencies’ acceptance expected because:  Draws from FHWA/FRA project proposals.  Other agencies’ noise and emissions model untouched.  Produces output required by current agencies’ regulations and policies. Cost effective because:  Learn from other projects such as

E-14 Build Description Rationale Schematic 2. Develop a shell program to control input preparation, execution, and output processing of each of the standard noise and/or air quality models used for each transportation mode. EUROCONTROL HARMONOISE and FAA MAGENTA.  Improves ease-of-use. 3 Construct screening tools to allow primary agency to use the full power of its current model (like AEDT), combined with low-precision versions of the current models for other modes (like TNM). The screening tools (preprocessors) include:  Ground Noise Screener.  Aviation Noise Screener.  Airport Emissions Screener.  Non-airport Emissions Screener. Agencies’ acceptance expected because:  Lessons learned from FAAAEDT DRG discussion about AEDT complexity.  Produces output required by current agencies’ regulations and policies.  Noise and emissions screening criteria would comply with agencies’ requirements. Cost effective because the users can put appropriate level of effort to the environmental area of prime concern (like aircraft) while also assessing the other contributors (road, rail, construction, etc.).

E-15 Build Description Rationale Schematic 4 1. Incorporate noise and emissions simulation into the system architecture alongside the segmented noise component. 2. Integrate output with APMT benefits valuation block (BVB) requirements for economic impact assessments. Agencies’ acceptance expected because:  Produces output required by current agencies’ regulations and policies.  DOD AAM development has already proven that simulation (NMSIM) and segmented (NOISEMAP) can work together. Cost effective because will learn from DOD AAM project and leverage on the FAA APMT effort; specifically the benefits evaluation block within APMT. This release is likely to serve as a “research model” to evaluate the simulation capability and to await interagency agreement on how to apply impact valuations in environmental assessments. 5+ Version 5 begins the process of integrating the ground and air components into a single multimodal model with the objective to have:  Centralized sources database (vehicle performance, noise, and emissions indices).  Common input requirements (where practical) and uniform input processes.  Harmonized computational algorithms (e.g., sound This approach depends on an almost interactive design review group (DRG) to understand how the model is being used and what is most needed next. Supporting technical and policy infrastructures are needed to achieve interagency agreement on policies and procedures. This approach also calls for the delivery of workable software in shorter intervals so that new elements can be tested across the user community before field implementation to ensure that the new

E-16 Build Description Rationale Schematic propagation).  Harmonized modules (e.g., atmospheric dispersion).  Unified output processes (e.g., metrics). The priorities for harmonization, unification, and centralization will be based on user needs, agency acceptance, and affordability. version meets the needs of the broadest audience. In collaboration with the user communities and agencies, the developers could use evaluation criteria from Task 3 to reach agreement on build priorities End State Dynamic source (airplane, automobile, truck, vessel, etc.) simulation model with benefits evaluator to convert noise exposure and air quality changes into environmental costs.  Meet the emissions and noise assessment requirements (regulatory and policy) of every agency involved in an integrated regional planning process.  Highly modular design so that the model can be universally coupled to a wide range of other transportation planning tools, such as traffic simulation models (e.g. SIMMOD, TRANSIMS, etc.).

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TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Web-Only Document 11: A Comprehensive Development Plan for a Multimodal Noise and Emissions Model explores development of a tool that would allow for the assessment of the noise and air quality impacts on the population from multiple transportation sources, assess the total costs and impacts, and assist in the design and implementation of mitigation strategies. The availability of a multimodal noise and emissions model could help inform airport and policymakers charged with evaluating and making decisions on expanding transportation facilities.

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