Map tool
How loud is it at this address?
The official environmental noise map gives a day and a night value for any address in the Rhine valley, where a survey was made. We queried it at 18 points across the market, and the loudest is not in the provincial capital but in the Marktgasse in Feldkirch. More important than any single value is where the map says nothing: of 6,875 inhabited locations only 1,016 carry a zone.
Enter an address or tap the map
Our own evaluation per housing location: only INHABITED 250-metre cells are coloured; woods, fields and water stay blank. Pale cells lie below the mapping threshold or outside the surveyed area. In this market the second case is by far the more common. Source: strategic environmental noise map 2022 (laerminfo.at, Austrian Ministry of Climate Action), road, motorway and rail noise. Air traffic is not surveyed for this market.
How to read the map
The map shows the continuous sound level in 5-decibel zones: once averaged across the whole day (Lden, weighted for evening and night) and once for the night alone (Lnight, 10 pm to 6 am). Green means two different things here: below the mapping threshold of 55 dB by day or 45 dB at night, OR outside the surveyed area. Telling those two apart is the key exercise in the Rhine valley, because the second case clearly dominates.
- below 55 dB
- Quiet, or not surveyed. The Leutbühel in Bregenz sits just above at 55 to 59 dB, but the Achsiedlung, the Fluh, the Dornbirn market square, Lauterach town hall and Egg carry no zone at all. Nine of the 44 regions in the market are completely empty. Green says nothing there.
- 55 to 64 dB
- Audible but ordinary. The centre of Bregenz at the Leutbühel sits in this band at 55 to 59 dB. It is the thinnest band in the market, because the map here knows almost only the main axes, and those carry higher values.
- 65 to 74 dB
- Loud. This is the band of the Rhine valley axis: Bregenz Rheinstraße and station, Hohenems, Rankweil, Götzis, Wolfurt, Lustenau and Feldkirch station. In Götzis three sources overlap at once: road, motorway and rail.
- above 75 dB
- Very loud, the highest band on the scale. Measured at exactly one of the 18 spots: the Marktgasse in Feldkirch, in the middle of the old town. The loudest point in the market is therefore not in Bregenz.
Rule of thumb: most people perceive 10 dB more as twice as loud. And the night counts more than the day; for sleep, Lnight is the more important value. Four of the ten mapped spots sit at 65 to 69 dB at night, and three of those are rail locations.
When does it officially count as too loud?
The thresholds are set in the Federal Environmental Noise Protection Act and differ by source. They are not limits in the sense of a prohibition, but the point from which the state must draw up action plans.
| Source | Day (Lden) | Night (Lnight) |
|---|---|---|
| Road | 60 dB | 50 dB |
| Motorway and expressway | 60 dB | 50 dB |
| Rail | 70 dB | 60 dB |
| Air traffic | 65 dB | 55 dB |
| Industry (IPPC plants) | 55 dB | 50 dB |
For rail the threshold is higher than for roads, because a passing train works differently from continuous traffic. In the Rhine valley that matters: of the ten mapped spots, four carry a rail zone, and three of those sit in the 65 to 69 dB band at night.
What the map can and cannot do
- Green here usually means “not surveyed”
- Of 6,875 inhabited locations in the market, 1,016 carry an official zone, that is 14.8 per cent. In our other markets it is 11 to 35 per cent, making Bregenz the second thinnest. Nine of the 44 regions are completely empty. No zone there is no statement about quiet.
- Not an agglomeration, and this time no surprise
- The EU environmental noise directive names 100,000 inhabitants as the threshold for area-wide mapping. Austria has designated five agglomerations: Vienna, Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Bregenz has 29,270 inhabitants and sits far below. We queried the official layer at all 18 points of the market, with no hit anywhere.
- The loudest point is not in Bregenz
- In the Marktgasse in Feldkirch the map reports Lden from 75 dB, the highest band on the scale. The centre of Bregenz at the Leutbühel carries 55 to 59 dB. Sorting this market by quiet does not sort it by city size.
- Air traffic is not surveyed here
- Our data for this market carries road, motorway and rail, no air traffic. The nearest airport is St. Gallen-Altenrhein in Switzerland, 14 kilometres away across the lake; the only airfield in Vorarlberg is Hohenems-Dornbirn. Neither is a major airport in the sense of the mapping.
- Industrial noise is not surveyed
- Industrial plants requiring a permit (IPPC) are only mapped in the five agglomerations. For this market there is therefore no industrial zone. That does not mean there is no plant noise, only that nobody has surveyed it across the area.
- Traffic only, and only outdoors
- The map knows nothing of neighbours, beer gardens, building sites or sports grounds. It also computes the level at the façade, not inside the flat: floor, windows and which side of the building change the result considerably. If the spot you tap carries no zone, the analysis takes the loudest zone within about 15 metres, that is the street side, and says so.
Quiet hours in the Rhine valley: what applies where?
The answer here is less comfortable than elsewhere: Vorarlberg has NO province-wide quiet hours. The provincial security act states only, in section 1, that “no one may create improperly disruptive noise”, and in section 2 it empowers the municipal council to restrict noisy activities by time and place. So what applies is decided by the municipality, and in a market of 38 municipalities that means the rule changes at the municipal boundary.
Bregenz has a noise protection ordinance, adopted on 19 March 1991. Under it, mowing and other noisy garden equipment are permitted from Monday to Saturday between 8 am and noon and between 2 and 7 pm, and not on Sundays and public holidays. The same times apply in Dornbirn and Bludenz. Breaching the ordinance is an administrative offence: under section 15(1)(a) of the provincial security act a fine of up to 700 euro, with no substitute custodial sentence.
Four neighbouring municipalities, four different rules
- Bregenz: ordinance, 8 to 12 and 2 to 7
- Noise protection ordinance of 19 March 1991, Monday to Saturday. Sundays and public holidays are excluded. Dornbirn and Bludenz have the same times.
- Lochau: an ordinance too, but an hour longer
- Monday to Saturday from 8 am to noon and from 2 to 8 pm. So the municipality next to Bregenz allows one hour more in the evening than the provincial capital, although the two built-up areas run into each other.
- Lauterach: only a recommendation
- Monday to Friday 8 am to noon and 1 to 7 pm, Saturday until 6 pm, and that is a RECOMMENDATION, not an ordinance. Ignoring it is therefore not an administrative offence, as long as the noise is not improper within the meaning of section 1.
- Lingenau: no rule at all
- The municipality has adopted no rule of its own. Only the general principle of the provincial act applies there, and what counts as “improper” is then decided case by case by the authority.
- Only four of the largest municipalities
- Of the ten largest municipalities in the region, only Bregenz, Bludenz, Dornbirn and Hard have adopted a noise protection ordinance at all. In all the others there are no fixed times to point to.
For a housing search that means two things. First, the question “when may the neighbour mow?” has no provincial answer here, only a municipal one. Second, an address two streets away can fall under a different rule, and that is in no listing.
Legal basis: Vorarlberg provincial security act LGBl. no. 1/1987, sections 1 and 2 as amended by LGBl. no. 61/2013, penalty provision section 15 as amended by LGBl. no. 121/2015. The municipal times come from the City of Bregenz ordinance collection and from the overview on oesterreich.gv.at. Without warranty; when in doubt, ask the municipality.
What about aircraft noise?
None is surveyed for this market. Our data carries road, motorway and rail noise, no air traffic, and that is no oversight: only major airports are mapped, and there is none in the Rhine valley.
The nearest airport is St. Gallen-Altenrhein, and it is in Switzerland, 14 kilometres from Bregenz across the lake. The only airfield in Vorarlberg is Hohenems-Dornbirn, plus three helipads in Feldkirch, Ludesch and Nenzing.
Anyone searching close to Altenrhein or to the Hohenems-Dornbirn airfield will therefore find the exposure neither on this map nor in any Austrian statistic. That is a gap, and we write it down rather than passing an empty map off as quiet.
Nothing is available for the night either. A missing value here does not mean “no movements”, it means “not surveyed”.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the map so patchy in the Rhine valley?
Because only main transport routes are surveyed. Area-wide mapping exists only in the five Austrian agglomerations, and with 29,270 inhabitants Bregenz is not one. Of 6,875 inhabited locations in the market, 1,016 therefore carry a zone, that is 14.8 per cent, and nine of the 44 regions are completely empty.
Is Bregenz quieter than Feldkirch?
At the mapped spots yes, but the comparison limps. The loudest of our 18 measurements is the Marktgasse in Feldkirch at Lden from 75 dB; the centre of Bregenz at the Leutbühel carries 55 to 59. The Rheinstraße in Bregenz, however, sits at 70 to 74 dB, because of the railway. Within one town the spread is larger than between the towns.
When may my neighbour in Bregenz mow the lawn?
Monday to Saturday between 8 am and noon and between 2 and 7 pm, under the noise protection ordinance of 19 March 1991. Not on Sundays and public holidays. In Lochau it runs until 8 pm, in Lauterach it is only a recommendation, and in Lingenau there is no rule at all. Vorarlberg has no province-wide regulation.
What does a breach cost?
Under section 15(1)(a) of the Vorarlberg provincial security act, a fine of up to 700 euro. The act provides for no substitute custodial sentence. Both breaching a municipal ordinance and, even without any ordinance, creating improperly disruptive noise under section 1 are punishable.
Is there a decibel limit for noise from neighbours?
No. For neighbourhood noise the law names no decibel value; decisions follow what is locally customary and whether the usual use of the flat is substantially impaired. The decibel thresholds on this page apply to the traffic noise of the official map, so 60 dB by day and 50 dB at night for roads.
Does the map show the noise inside the flat?
No, it computes the level at the façade. Floor, window quality and which side of the building change the result considerably: between the street side and the courtyard side of the same building there is easily 10 to 15 dB, and most people perceive 10 dB as half as loud.
Official map data: 2022 (next EU round: 2027) · Source: laerminfo.at (Austrian Ministry of Climate Action), CC BY · Quiet hours: Vorarlberg provincial security act LGBl. no. 1/1987 (sections 1 and 2 as amended by LGBl. no. 61/2013, section 15 as amended by LGBl. no. 121/2015) and the City of Bregenz noise protection ordinance of 19 March 1991 · Municipal times in the surrounding area: oesterreich.gv.at · Agglomeration status, mapped sources and coverage queried by us, September 2026