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he citation in Figure 1 is not from a recent visitor in Rome, but from the Roman author Martial some 2000 years ago. Anybody who has seen Roman roads that still exist or the streets of old Pompeii can easily imagine the noise created by the wagons rolling down these uneven streets. This sound is the ancient form of tire/road noise. Today’s tire/road noise is a matter of concern. In fact, it is one of the major environmental problems of modern society and is not stabilized or under control. Most other environmental problems, where schemes such as the Kyoto Protocol exist, try to lower or even reach a status quo of future pollution. Some indicators of the growing problem of noise are social surveys and records of complaints to authorities. For example, in England and Wales, there are now more than double the number of domesticand transport-related noise complaints to local authorities than there were ten years ago1. In Germany, noise exposure from road traffic noise increased steadily during the 1990’s2. In the ongoing Swedish property taxation, it was reported from one of the major regions that one in four property owners claimed depreciation due to road or railway noise, despite the fact that the proposed values already took noise exposure into consideration. Yet Sweden is one of the quietest countries in Europe. Other indications of noise problems are the increasing public reluctance to accept new roads and motorways that authorities decide on; despite the reason often being attempts to bypass traffic in urban areas to solve the associated environmental problems. Over the next two decades, the traffic planners predict a traffic growth that is likely to result in noise problems in Europe that are much worse than today. For example, it is expected that by 2010, the transported goods in the EU will exceed that of 1997 by about 50 per cent. In 2020 this amount may have doubled compared with 1997. Transportation of people by road will also increase greatly; albeit not as dramatically as for goods. Imagine a situation with more than 50 per cent as much road traffic as today. In the worst-case scenario, the noise-exposed land area may increase by about 50 per cent if no action is taken. A clear trend in Europe is that the concern for quiet recreational areas is increasing. In some countries, such areas will soon be extinct if the trend is not broken. It is impractical to protect large rural areas by noise barriers, therefore the only means are measures related to traffic speeds, the vehicles, tires and the road surfaces. A fundamental question is: Will the traffic growth and increased noise be accepted at all? Traffic growth reflects a desire to expand commerce across Europe and increase personal travelling. This is what one part of the population wants. Another part wants to limit traffic levels, irrespective of the mechanisms behind traffic growth. Traffic growth will be accepted only when the environmental problems can be solved – in other words, make quieter or fewer tires. The same can be expanded to the road sector – people won’t accept new and faster roads unless the noise can be reduced. Directive 2001/43/EC, published in 2001 and effective for some tires starting this year, was thought by many to change Tire Technology International ’03