Cars are constantly zooming past, waste collection vehicles are weaving through the streets, the yellow tram is screeching away on its rails and at night the bass is thumping from your neighbour’s apartment: Berlin is buzzing 24/7. Most of the noise is caused by road traffic, followed by above-ground rail traffic (including parts of the subway (U-Bahn) and the rapid rail (S-Bahn) as well as regional and main-line traffic), industrial plants, events, Tegel Airport and construction sites. Even in some recreational areas, the chirping of birds and the burbling of water is interspersed with city noise. At first, it might just seem a little bit of a nuisance, but it is actually a serious environmental burden: noise damages our health – especially if it keeps you up at night. It can lead to cardiovascular diseases, concentration disorders or high blood pressure, for example.
What areas of Berlin are particularly loud? What areas are as quiet as the Gatower Heide (heath)? Which protective measures are there? How helpful are noise barriers and other measures really? And, incidentally, how did noise levels develop over the past decades in Berlin? Discover a wealth of results based on many years of data collection on noise pollution and comprehensive noise mappings here. The noise maps illustrate, for example, how the noise of Berlin’s main road network affects not only building facades, but also forests and some 120 parks, allotment gardens and cemeteries in the city – which form the data base of the survey.