Research and development in the field of tyre road noise are mainly pushed from the necessity to reduce noise at the most prominent source of road traffic noise, the tyre road contact. In spite of a serious tightening of the limit values for the noise type approval testing of road vehicles rolling noise strongly affects the noise of flowing traffic even in urban situations. Due to the noise measurement procedure the vehicle's operating conditions are not adapted to the flowing traffic situation. Drive noise dominates and rolling noise hardly plays a role. For this reason, the tightening of the limit values mainly affected the reduction of the drive noise, while leaving the tyre road noise unimproved. Road pavement has the biggest noise reduction potential. By means of novel, acoustically improved road pavements a reduction of the road traffic noise by 10 dB can be expected.

Since 1996, Müller-BBM is engaged in national and international research activities intended to reveal the influence of tyre and road surface on the rolling noise generation. Measurement and analysis of the dependence of the tyre road noise on road surface properties, but in particular a more tightly focused improvement and the new development of road pavements are of main concern. Introducing the computational model SPERoN which is developed in cooperation with the Federal German Highway Research Institute (BASt) and the Department of Applied Acoustics of Chalmers University, Gothenburg, a tool is made available for the design of novel, highly efficient noise reducing road pavements and for the assessment of their acoustical performance in the course of civil engineering and testing.