Indonesian Laboratory Helps Reduce Road Noise

Pusarpedal is an environmental laboratory under the Indonesian Environment Ministry, performing environmental quality testing and monitoring.

It was established as an environment reference laboratory with grants from the Japanese government in 1993. It then received the testing laboratory accreditation certificate from the National Accreditation Committee (KAN) on February 7, 2001.

Pusarpedal conducted the study that set the Indonesian standards and defined the official testing methodologies, both of which refer to international ones. With more than 10 million motorbikes in Indonesia, a significant noise problem led to the introduction of regulations in 2010.

Pass-by noise legislation is used to certify all vehicles built in and imported into Indonesia. At present, Pusarpedal use an actual road for most testing, rather than a dedicated test track - and they rent a track with an asphalt or concrete surface when it is required.

However, they plan to have their own 420-metre pass-by test track within three years. Measurement projects include pass-by noise testing on trucks, with the major brands in Indonesia being Hino, Nissan and Isuzu.

Reports are made in Microsoft Excel, with Brüel & Kjær’s (UK) PULSE system now running under Microsoft Windows 7. Data is saved onto the PC hard drive, and then backed up after every measurement.