Health and whole life cost benefits of highways noise barriers.

As with any asset on the highways network, it is common sense to allow for realistic maintenance costs when choosing and procuring a noise barrier system. A short-term approach of focusing on newly installed prices alone creates a false economy and potentially stores up financial hardship for the future. The adverse impact of road traffic noise on public health is also long appreciated. Being able to quantify in financial terms not the only perceived annoyance but also the long-term damage to health due to traffic noise helps to justify why one particular noise barrier design will benefit the community more than another over its life cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]