Reduction of Impact Noise of Trams on a Major Bridge

As part of a recent renovation of the Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam, improvements were made to reduce impact noise caused by trams passing a series of rai! joints. The bridge inciudes several different sections inciuding a bascule bridge and is in an inner city tocation with new adjacent apartment buildings. At request of public transport company RET, TNO investigated the noise situation and proposed a number of noise control solutions in close cooperation with RET and the engineering department of the city of Rotterdam. This paper describes how the noise sources were identified and ranked by monitoring, how diagnostic measurements and analyses were performed to select and evaluate the most suitable noise control measures, and the achieved noise reduction. The main so!utions inciuded moving railjoints and introducing new joint types, local stiffening of sensitive bridge deck parts and improved elastic support of the rails