Vision
• Stop noise pollution due to daily traffic
• Stop hospitalisation and expenses for millions of people with traffic noise induced illnesses, such as high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases.
• Our innovative noise absorbing guardrails should be used per default in the future instead of separate noise absorption and guardrails
• Rebuild all existing guardrails to our new and innovative noise absorbing guardrails.
• Increase safety (for motorcyclists), amphibian protection and trees environment
Executive Summary
We have found a cost-effective and innovative way of drastically reducing traffic noise pollution and hereby also the extensive health effects caused by this. According to studies noisy traffic results directly in lethal diseases for millions of people all over the world. Premature death, high blood pressure and increase in cardiovascular diseases are some of the health effects induced by traffic noise pollution.
Studies also show that 1.0 – 1.6 million healthy life years are lost every year from traffic related noise in the western European countries, including the EU Member States. Besides the loss of lives the expenses related to hospitalization and treatment of noise pollution related illnesses are massive. There is an acute need of a solution to this very serious problem of increased traffic induced deaths and illnesses around the globe.
Noisy traffic now bothers every third home in Denmark, which supports the need for noise reduction.
800 to 2,000 Danes are hospitalized each year with high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases due to traffic noise.
Traffic noise causes premature death for up to 500 people annually, only in Denmark
COWI estimates hospital costs in Denmark from 40 to 100 million DKK / year, and death / illness to between 1.8 and 5.1 billion DKK.
Total Socio Costs per year due to traffic noise are by Ramboll (report from EPA, No1 - 2010) estimated to 8.7 billion DKK – in Denmark alone.
All the above figures can somehow be extrapolated to cover most of the developed countries in the EU, which leads to astronomic and considerable high socio economic costs. Extrapolated by population to our Business Case (DK, DE, NL, FR, IT) equals socio economic costs at 52.7 billion EURO for these 5 countries alone.
Today’s solution to this noise pollution is often to either try to limit the traffic or to use noise reducing asphalt. Both solutions are quite expensive and also political. The small company NAG 1 ApS has developed a unique noise absorbing guardrail (NAG), which absorbs the noise at the wayside,-at the source. The design is patent granted in Denmark, Europe and US, and is patent pending in China. The recognized consultancy company Delta has conducted test and measurements on our design and the results show that the noise from road traffic will be attenuated by up to 5 dB. This corresponds to halving the traffic on a road, or the use of noise reducing asphalt (which is more than 500% more expensive), or doubling the distance between roads and houses.
A huge business potential is available for NAG, as all countries in EU and the rest of the world focus on avoiding road accidents by using guardrails and furthermore focus on noise reduction from road traffic.
NAG combines the efforts of avoiding accidents and reduce noise from traffic, and NAG guard rail can even replace existing guard rail, and "reuse" stands etc.
Installation of the NAG noise absorbing guardrails provides a very attractive ROI.
Feasibility
Technological
The NAG Noise Absorbing Guardrail, Vers 1 has just been positively crash-tested. We know that our solution will work. Initial tests look very promising, and we foresee only minor setbacks in implementing the solution on larger scales.
Market overview - Nordic
As there has been an increased focus on noise reduction activities all over Europe, the need for noise absorbing guardrails is expected to increase dramatically in the years to come. All member states in the
European Union is obliged, in accordance to EU-legislation, to map traffic noise using the same and coherent indicators. Basically the noise shall be measured 4 metres above surface. Denmark also measures the noise at a level of 1,5 metres above surface.
In Denmark it is not allowed to build roads exceeding the adopted thresholds concerning noise from traffic. Municipalities can set own thresholds for the level of noise as well. Annually the public spending’s for noise reduction has been average 3,4 mill. € since 2004. Approximately 786,000 homes are affected from noise. Equal to 1,6 mill. people.
In Norway around 30% of the population is suffering from noise problems, equal to 1,2 mill. people.
Road noise has increased from 1999 to 2007 with 15%. Norway has defined thresholds. Until 2006 the government has invested 70 mill. € in noise reduction activities along the state owned roads. In 2008 a new target for noise reduction was set: From 1999 to 2020 noise problems shall be reduced 10%. Number of persons suffering from indoor noise exceeding 38 dB shall be reduced 30% in 2020 compared to 2005. Focus will be on road noise reduction.
In Sweden 16% or 1,5 mill. people is suffering from noise above the thresholds. The ambitious target set
is that no one in 2020 will meet noise above the thresholds set. 68 mill. € invested in noise reduction activities 1998-2007.
Finland has 700,000 - 800,000 people suffering from noise above the thresholds,-equal to 15% of the
population. There is a common understanding to invest more money in noise reduction activities.
Partners
The general interest among our partners for NAG is recognised to be very high, and all preliminary customer contacts made, has been received in a very positive way followed by a meeting request.
Several international and Danish companies has shown willingness to invest in the tools needed for production.
NAG partners has been choosen. Please go to "About Nag1 / Partners".
Market potential
NAG is an inexpensive solution with great effect, and can / should be used as part of the implementation of regulatory action against road traffic, both at national and international level. All Danish municipalities and all EU countries are required to produce a noise action plan, and our potential business partners assess NAG to have international potential. Our partners (all with roots in the industry) have all considered the potential to be present.
We have not in our business case included the potential of retro-fitting, nor for the potential of the United States and China patents. This is unknown up- sides.
Socio economic savings
The total annual socio economic costs in Denmark due to traffic noise are by Ramboll in 2010 estimated to be 8.7 Billion DKK (Danish Environmental Protection Agency, Report No. 1, 2010). Calculations in our business case shows that if these costs (8.7 Billion DKK) can be reduced by just 1% - using Nag1's noise-absorbing guardrails, the Return on Investment (ROI) for the society will be 365%, as the incremental cost of Nag1's noise-absorbing guardrails – corresponding to conventional guardrails are relatively low.
The noise reduction by Nag1's noise-absorbing guardrails are between 3 and 5+ dB which corresponds to a halving of the traffic, and indicates a substantial improvement - up to 30% of the traffic noise will disappear. The socio economic savings may prove to be considerably higher. It is our opinion that the above figures, sizes and numbers - to a certain point - can be extrapolated to other European countries and the United States and China – which leads to considerable savings.
Source references - reports can be uploaded from "Links"