Leading worldwide experts focused on quality of life initiatives at well-attended ARC conference in Amsterdam  

Laila Driessen, vice Governor of Noord-Holland, highlighted some investments in quality of life in the Schiphol region. She mentioned of the “Alders-table", an agreement between parties involved in and influenced by the Schiphol airport, including citizens from the surrounding municipalities, in order to try to address future growth of the airport and reduce noise pollution.  

- I am happy that Noord-Holland took the initiative to in this way take responsibility to reduce noise and emissions, said Laila Driessen.

Arlene Mulder, Mayor of Arlington village near Chicago, presented the plan of the Chicago O´Hare airport to improve the quality of life. Part of this plan is to reach out to the communities and create a dialogue, which is pursued for example through the biofuel bus that´s being sent out to the residents. She also described the Residential Sound Insulation Program which aims to reduce the impact of aircraft noise in homes surrounding O'Hare International Airport by making the homes more sound insulated.

Patrick Heck, General Manager, presented the development of the city around Denver airport. He stressed the importance of input to society, listening to feedback, partnership and balance of interests.

Giuseppe Rizzo from the DG Tren in the European Commission spoke of the importance of intermodality to address and reduce air pollution mainly on the surface. He stressed that airport regions should continue their efforts to make the best of the different modes of transport in the trans-european network.

The results of four major ARC projects were also presented at the conference, including the project QLAIR (Quality of Life in Airport Regions). The objective of the QLAIR project — and the theme for the whole conference — is to create competitive airport regions in which economic development and the improvement of quality of life are equally balanced. Four short-term issues have been explored more carefully, in the areas of ground noise, mitigation and compensation, information and communication, and finally air traffic management.
 
At the exhibition area several stakeholders from the aviation sector and the airport regions presented their work and this area also gave an excellent opportunity for further discussions and creating contacts.

Every two years ARC organises a major international conference where political representatives from cities and regions in Europe meet with representatives from the aviation industry, discussing how to meet local and regional effects of changes in the air.

Gunnel Rydberg