Reportnet for Noise: Feedback from member countries Colin Nugent

1. Reportnet for Noise:Feedback from member countries Colin Nugent Eionet National Reference Centres for Noise meeting Copenhagen 14-15 October 2009

2. Survey of National Reference Centres, September 2009 • Uptake of Reportnet • Use of the guidelines • Value of the guidelines • Value of the quality check • Recommendations • General comments • 21 Replies

4. Q1 Comments • “Delivery of DF5 was done. DF1 to DF4 could not be delivered through reportnet.” • “All data flows where reported using Reportnet” • “We used Reportnet for DF4, DF5, DF6 and DF7”

6. Q2 Comments • ”Very important guidelines” • “Yes, this User Manual was very useful.” • “Necessary information when not familiar with reportnet” • “but it came to late”

8. Q3 Comments • “The guidelines provided excellent assistance to submit noise relating reports. They were easy to follow and described step by step what to do which made my work much more easier.” • If i didn’t have these guidelines, i would probably couldn’t make it to report right.

9. Q3 Comments contd. • “Very useful. Following the guidelines I made the report on Data Flow 5 without problems.” • “The guidelines are very clear and there is all that is needed for reporting with Reportnet"

10. Q3 Comments contd. • “Need to ensure that if there are any changes made to Reportnet that the User Manual is updated to reflect these changes.” • “Yes, but templates are unfortunately very different from those that we used them before 2008. Some harmonization work (ID codes in shape files and GIS coordinates) still needs to be done before uploading the reports on CDR.”

12. Q4 Comments • “Automatic quality check was really helpful! The excel sheets had lot of little mistakes, which i couldn’t "see" without the automatic check.” • “I had some mistakes, which I eliminated after receiving the results provided by the automatic quality check.”

13. Q4 Comments contd. • “Only one discrepancy was found in connection with automatic quality check. According to the delivery guide in the case the road has no EU road ID one should write “data not applicable” in the field of “EU road ID”. Contrary to the guide, writing this text in the field of EU road ID, the automatic check list signs an error. An error was also found, when two EU road IDs was written, albeit some roads have really two IDs.”

14. Q4 Comments contd. • “Several uploads and checks were needed to get the data format right.” • “The Excel files where too large to make manual corrections” • “Absolute necessary tool. Saving of QA results via "file > save as" failed.”

15. Q4 Comments contd. • “This quality check was very useful and identified one or two changes that we were required to make to our return. By highlighting any changes required at the time of delivery, this reduced the need to revisit the data at a later date, and would also have reduced the effort required to analyse the data by the EEA.”

16. Q5 Recommendations • “We prefer the web forms of FAQ and online actualization of the Guide” • “My suggestion is do not use the web forms, because as I know from my colleagues, who used web forms in Reportnet, you have limited time for filling in the web forms and if your session expired you must to start again.”

17. Q5 Recommendations • “It would be of benefit to produce any guidelines well in advance of the date of submission i.e., a few months prior to submission. This is to ensure that the methods used and details collated by Member States from the various national bodies are both suitable and complete.”

18. Q5 Recommendations • “As a result of the use of Reportnet in practice we propose that for checking the quality of geospatial data these data should be visualized based on topographic maps.” • “The possibility to directly see what or if the right format is used when working in the excel files would be useful”

19. Q4 Recommendations • “..Checklists e.g. for DF4, each country has to complete a number of different items including for example an excel spreadsheet, supply various reports (e.g. methodology reports, supplementary information etc), GIS information and metadata…specific to each of the particular deliveries, with relevant links to further guidance … I found that the.. [ENDRM Handbook]... quite confusing and very detailed. Thus by having a checklist, one could then be assured that they were making a complete return.

20. General comments • “We have never transmitted any information/data about the noise. Currently, we are not able to ensure a regular activity to report information on the noise” • “I suggest that Agency can use a completed form with "imaginary" data, for each data sheet, as an example to Member States, so it can assist MS in completing it.”

21. General comments • “It would make the reporting easier if Quality Assessment error messages give explanation on the detected error. In some cases we used helpdesk in others we used the RM 2007 Handbook to solve the problems.” • “We had great difficulties to upload large shape files. The format definition came to late.”

22. General comments • “The provision of the Eionet help desk was very useful and the response time was excellent.” • “On one or two occassions, when we uploaded data to Reportnet, we didn't receive a delivery receipt. It would be useful if one was received after each upload, to ensure that we had a record of our delivery.”

23. General comments • “Reporting in accordance with the European Directive 2002/49/EC is an essential information flow for environmental noise data in Europe. For this reason quality assessment is of great importance. It could be further improved if the data forms of Reportnet are made mandatory. Therefore, we suggest that the EC stipulates in a decision that these forms have to be used by the member states.”

24. Summary • More use of Reportnet please • Guidance is used, but needs to be in good time • Pre-filled format in CDR • QC noted, but more explanation is required • Format: Webforms? Excel? • Mandatory use of Reportnet……? Help is at hand: helpdesk@eionet.europa.eu