Markku Alahäme
Technical Director
Most of the noise of the port operations is caused by vessel calls, loading and unloading, and the vehicle traffic to and from the Port. In the Port of Turku, noise is occasional, focusing on the hours around the daily departures of passenger vessels in the morning and evening.
Prevention of noise in the Port has great significance for the future Turku. Residential areas are drawing closer to the port areas, which has created a strong incentive for the development work.
The decreasing of noise impacts will be increasingly emphasised in the future, as the residential areas and services of the city-centre are expanding towards the Port. To find new solutions for noise abatement the Port of Turku participated in the international Neptunes project. The joint project of ten different ports focused e.g. on developing a consistent method for measuring the noise from vessels and categorising vessels in terms of noise, and mapped the best practices for reducing noise from vessels.