Noise Monitoring

Limitations of Airservices Noise and Flight Path Monitoring System (NFPMS)

Airservices NFPMS was originally set up to monitor operations at major airports across Australia and relies upon obtaining the details of aircraft operations from lodged flight plans.

Over time, the NFPMS has expanded to include other airports in Australia’s main cities, within 50km of the main airport. However, the source radar data for these cities is still obtained from the main city airport, which can result in data gaps (depending on the distance of the secondary airport from the main airport). As these data gaps occur randomly throughout the day, the data, while incomplete, still provides a representative picture of the weekly, hourly and day/night distribution of aircraft operations.

General Aviation (GA) airports, such as Archerfield, Jandakot, Moorabbin and Parafield, have a high proportion of operations relating to training and GA. As a result, the majority of movements at these airports do not lodge a detailed flight plan and therefore there is limited aircraft identification data captured in the NFPMS. Aircraft operations at GA airports include higher numbers of small aircraft operating in closer proximity, compared to operations at major airports. These types of operations, combined with gaps in radar data and limited flight plan information, are all factors that impact the accuracy of the flight identification process in Airservices NFPMS.

Noise data was collected from short-term noise monitoring between July 2015 and January 2016 at:

Noise monitoring is not conducted to determine compliance with aircraft noise regulations – there is no regulated maximum level for aircraft noise. Rather, aircraft operating in Australia are required to meet noise standards imposed through the Air Navigation (Aircraft Noise) Regulations 2018. These regulations stipulate compliance with international noise standards that apply to the design and production of aircraft, and specify the amount of noise that may be emitted by an aircraft type or model. Aircraft that do not meet these standards are prohibited from engaging in air navigation in Australia unless exceptional circumstances apply. This is administered by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications.

Noise monitoring is conducted to:

More information is available on the Monitoring Aircraft Noise page.

Select a location to view the most frequently correlated aircraft types for that noise monitor.