# Road and rail noise by postcode

For every postcode in England, the modelled road and rail noise (Lden, the yearly day-evening-night level) at its centre, from Defra's strategic noise maps.

## Facts

- Published by: Defra
Office for National Statistics
- Level of detail: Postcode
- Updates: Quarterly
- History: Since 2021
- Licence: Open Government Licence 3.0
- Levels: Map point

## Caveats

- Defra models noise for 2021 on a 10 m grid, 4 m above the ground. Each point is a postcode in England, at its centre, coloured by the louder of road and rail noise there. A postcode's homes can be quieter or louder, especially on a side street or behind a building.
- Lden is the average over a year with 5 decibels added in the evening and 10 at night, because noise then disturbs more. Every 10 decibels is about twice as loud to the ear.
- The World Health Organization advises that road traffic noise should be below 53 dB Lden and railway noise below 54 dB Lden. 65 dB or more is loud.
- These are models of every road and railway, not measurements. They leave out aircraft and industry.

## Sources

### Strategic noise mapping, Round 4 (England)

- Publisher: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
- Licence: [Open Government Licence 3.0](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/)
- Edition: Strategic noise mapping Round 4 (2021), Lden
- Published: 8 December 2023
- Fetched: 19 October 2026
- Updates: one-off
- Credit: © Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs copyright and/or database right 2023. All rights reserved. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Publisher's page: https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/562c9d56-7c2d-4d42-83bb-578d6e97a517

### ONS Postcode Directory

- Publisher: Office for National Statistics
- Licence: [Open Government Licence 3.0](https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licences)
- Edition: ONSPD_AUG26
- Published: 7 September 2026
- Fetched: 15 October 2026
- Updates: quarterly
- Credit: Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026.
- Publisher's page: https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/

## Use it

- [The map](https://openindex.co.uk/map/noise-by-postcode)
- API: https://openindex.co.uk/v1/layers/noise-postcode

## How to cite

Source: Open Index, openindex.co.uk. Link to this page, https://openindex.co.uk/sources/noise-by-postcode.

Open Index's own text and the figures it works out are licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Source data keeps its publishers' licences, named with each figure. Give each figure's period and source with it.

- © Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs copyright and/or database right 2023. All rights reserved. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026.

Snapshot 2026.10.8, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23508850. The HTML page: https://openindex.co.uk/sources/noise-by-postcode