The author describes the legislative measures of the European Union in the programme of noise reduction. All member countries were advised to elaborate and approve in public sessions noise maps in agglomerations with more than 250 000 inhabitants and for major roads, airports and railways. In this sense national governments should provide by the end of 2008 detailed data on the assembled facts, in particular the size of areas affected by noise and the number of affected population. In our country legislative, institutional and competential conditions are not consistent with thus defined needs. One of the basic tasks is the need to express and evaluate the noise load of the territory. In this respect direct assessment of traffic noise is not enough and it is therefore necessary to use also computing methods. As within the framework of the European Union there is no common method of calculation, it is possible to use for this purpose approved national procedures, in our country it is the Method of calculation of noise maps in traffic (main author Dr. Liberko). Computed mapping however cannot be used in all instances, its promptness and economic unpretentiousness, on the other hand, makes it possible to resolve topical problems in the sphere of traffic noise, in particular evaluation of the impact on the population.

        Key words: traffic noise - reduction of noise in the European Union - computed noise maps