Deutsche Bahn introduces "MetaWindow"

[earthnail]

I love this. I read so much criticism here, but noise pollution is a main issue when it comes to railroads in residential zones.

Yes, punctuality is an issue with Deutsche Bahn. No, this doesn’t fix that instantly. But as an organisation you can work on two things at the same time.

This invention is spectacular. I wish more people would work on noise pollution. It makes a huge difference.

[nonrandomstring]

> I wish more people would work on noise pollution

Absolutely agree.

It's one of the most insidious kinds of pollution that has big effects on mental and cardio-vascular health, and is accumulative.

Everything from aircraft, to emergency vehicle sirens, to construction and poor housing, is slowly killing people.

In Europe we've actually made big leaps forward with regulation, building standards for isolation, and abatement laws. But these often go unenforced or even flippantly dismissed and mocked because people don't recognise the harm pathways and effects.

Whenever this topic comes up I am reminded of this (very funny) curmudgeon's screed "On Noise". Although Arthur Schopenhauer was "serious" about this, his acerbic style only gets more funny with time [0].

[0] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10732/10732-h/10732-h.htm

[lukan]

Noise reduction with trains is probably best done with improving the trains. I live next to a frequent trainline, so I can say:

There are modern long electric passenger trains, that barely make a noise at all. And then there are old freight trains, that can be heard from miles away. Since I doubt this noise barrier will be placed everywhere except at some very special key areas, I rather want the Bahn to focus on better trains in general.

[veunes]

Noise pollution is an issue that often doesn't receive the attention it deserves!

[lqet]

> a transparent noise barrier

Most rail noise barriers in Germany are completely covered in graffiti [0], so I wouldn't expect them to remain transparent for more than a few weeks.

[0] https://ga.de/imgs/93/8/5/9/3/0/9/1/9/tok_8596521c60eeaa53ee...

[Propelloni]

Sad, but true. Some people even spray paint the windows of the actual passenger cars [1]. It's not rare and most sprayers do not have the skill of the person who painted this car. I don't get it.

[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/kami68k/50329760658

[highcountess]

Many things are covered in graffiti in Western Europe. It always baffles me that people are in such a defeated state of mind that graffiti is just simply accepted and seemingly nothing is done about it.

[andersa]

That's because the current ones are all ugly metal walls. Painting stuff on them makes it at least slightly less depressing.

[umpalumpaaa]

If you dive into the graffiti scene a bit you will start to appreciate all those graffitis. The story behind some of them is super interesting. There is a lot of "competition", "collaboration", and group dynamics involved. It is truly fascinating. I was living in Cologne (Ehrenfeld) for a while in a place with awesome graffiti and every weekend there were people taking pictures "collecting" and documenting the graffiti.

Edit: Not "all of those" but "many of those"

[mtmail]

The article ends "the potential for faster planning approvals and reduced objection rates from communities, ultimately speeding up project completions." so their goal might be to build faster regardless how they'll look soon after.

[tuukkah]

DB is also deploying robot dogs against graffiti painters: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40388114

[wongarsu]

With the goals stated in the article they only really need to stay transparent in concept renders of new projects. Once built they only need to fulfill the noise insulation targets and be less of an eyesore than their solid counterparts

[nonrandomstring]

It's interesting to read this conversation about graffiti happening on a hacker forum, yet it seems stuck in a polarised stand-off around aesthetics and ownership rights.

That's a shame, because the root issues are in information warfare, the battle to control information spaces.

To the extent The Internet is still considered a "public space";

Is spamming and trolling not a form of digital graffiti?

Is the creation of products and apps that have a negative impact on society not a "narcissistic imposition"?

Is the appropriation of the commons or other private property to spread messages (advertising or graffiti) not the same in the digital realm?

And those who "clean up" graffiti... do we not call then "censors" or "like down/up-voting" when we wish to amplify or make other people's communications in the world disappear because we disagree with them?

At the end of the day we are all still animals shouting to be heard the loudest in our jungle. Online or offline we're party to the same personality traits of quiet orderliness or disorganised expression. What happens in cyberspace hardly seems different from what happens IRL with spray-paint.

[wiether]

And those vandals are doing this for a while now!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_art

[DeathArrow]

Isn't vandalism an offense in Germany?

[ghostly_s]

    [0] https://ga.de/imgs/93/8/5/9/3/0/9/1/9/tok_8596521c60eeaa53eea42eea57c8b7dc/w1200_h630_x662_y525_GA_85197421_2005565667_RGB_190_1_1_2d14a73e871971ed95a819ea6b69b342_1593349745_2005565667_77b22cacaf-f8bed87dc312e74a.jpg

looks much nicer than a blank wall to me.

[mikeiz404]

This article goes into a little more detail: https://www.heise.de/en/news/MetaWindow-Laermschutz-an-Gleis...

And the PhotonicVibes site is here: https://phononic-vibes.com/metawindow-for-railway/

Here is a demo video for a meta material made by them: https://youtu.be/NElK8qKRrBU?si=CfBjUESlu_XUvnn_

[riffraff]

That's a really cool demo!

[mbforbes]

A semi-related surprising fact I only learned recently is that the ultra-long nose of Japanese bullet trains is not for aerodynamics, but to reduce noise. Specifically, "tunnel boom."

Random source: https://www.jrpass.com/blog/why-shinkansen-bullet-trains-no-...

[bobthepanda]

this is only a problem in japan because the shinkansen is the oldest high speed network in existence.

new train tunnels built in Europe are wider and flare out at the end so that there isn't a tunnel boom.

[esafak]

The quality of my life would be better improved through public transportation and these sound absorbers than almost any app I use. Hooray for basic infrastructure.

[danpalmer]

I would go further, and say that public transport improves quality of life far more than sound absorbers for public transport do. It's nice that these things exist, but we should be spending money on more public transport, not necessarily on making public transport more palatable to people. I realise that's an unfortunate necessity, but it's clear that people pushing back on public transport just haven't seen its benefits enough.

[smokel]

My hart jumped when I initially thought that they had implemented an idea that I had once.

Turns out MetaWindow is not an augmented reality display in the train's window, where one can read information on the scenery that one passes through while traveling. What is that city in the distance? When was that church built? How many cows are in that meadow? Stuff one has to know.

[pjc50]

Some aircraft designers have proposed doing this, because a screen can be lighter than a pressure resistant window.

[dgellow]

I get the idea but I’m glad I can look through windows without being distracted by animated digital information

[reportgunner]

Just sit at home and stare at a video of the scenery at that point.

[JR1427]

I don't think this would make looking out of (or at) the window as enjoyable as with a normal transparent window.

Unless you mean that there would still be a normal window, too?

[tetris11]

A public institution doing this, fine fire away. A private train company? This will be an obnoxious video ad space.

[callalex]

This historical fact is brought to you by McDonalds™! flash flash flash

[croemer]

Terrible press release. The first picture shows an _intransparent_ barrier. Is that a before after picture? And what is "meta technology"?

[metters]

This [1] is the official press release by Deutsche Bahn. I wanted to post this instead, but it is in German.

[1] https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/presse/pressestart_zentrales...

[wiml]

My guess is it's related to "metamaterials", which are materials engineered to have interesting properties by including structures smaller than the wavelength of whatever is going through them (sound, microwaves, even visible light if the structures are fine enough). There is quite a lot of research into sound-absorbing yet porous acoustic metamaterials.

(Related, but maybe not technically a metamaterial, previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38678415 )

[addandsubtract]

Seems to be a before picture. There's an "after" picture further down the page. Meta technology maybe because it's not actual train related tech, but meta tech related to trains.

[pimlottc]

This is such a pet peeve for me too, images in articles should always have captions!

[eru]

They specifically mention railway noise. I wonder whether there's something special about railways, or whether it would work for other noise as well? Especially roads with cars on them?

[metters]

I think there are noises specific to railways. And from what I believe this "MetaWindow" targets relevant frequencies. However, I am sure this also works for the frequencies generated by car traffic.

At least the linked youtube video in this comment [1] does not mention anything about frequencies.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40384778

EDIT: I was wrong about the video. There is _no mention_ about frequencies.

[crote]

Railways are unique because they go right through the densest part of towns and cities. For them to be most effective, they should be within biking or ideally even walking distance of a significant number of homes and offices. If you place a railway on the outskirts of a city, nobody is going to use it. This means you're going to have to use very significant noise reduction to keep the area livable.

Highways care a lot less about location. Place them a one-minute car ride outside the city, and its noise becomes basically irrelevant. The city grows and swallows the highway? Just place an industrial area or mall between the highway and any homes. When homes aren't an arms-length away you can get away with far more primitive noise reduction.

[ghostly_s]

Okay it's clear-ish...but where's the noise level sample vs. the alternatives?

edit: I did find this cool demo of a similar product of theirs, but seems to be nothing more online about the noise barrier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUee93HcPVQ

[mindwok]

Lots of negative comments on this. I, for one, am glad to see work that supports better transport infrastructure while not being insanely ugly like a lot of transport infrastructure is (like the giant concrete birds nests of highways in US cities). I want to live in cities that are visually appealing.

[ggm]

I can't find it any more but I read a paper decades ago on the sound modulation effects of different plants, at scale and how designed planting around motorways can help reduce local resident impact.

[vezuchyy]

Cool, one day CP will install those along their tracks and my high-rise will shake silently every time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_F59PH#F59PHI departs from the station.

[felsokning]

They don't give any numbers on the amount of resistances to the expansion of the infrastructure, based on noise alone.

This reads like a "we did a cool thing" but without qualitatively demonstrating the merits for the need.

[surfingdino]

Or you could follow the way of thinking practiced by planners in London:

Analyst: "We could really use a bridge here..." Decision Maker: "I hear you, let's dig a tunnel!"

[Bluestein]

The startup behind the tech: - https://phononic-vibes.com/about-us/

[jasonvorhe]

Ask the typical DB customer if they want their trains to be on time or more silent and I promise you, the answer will not be surprising.

[DiogenesKynikos]

This project was probably very cheap compared to the cost of fixing the Deutsche Bahn's horrendous problems with delays and cancelations.

The Deutsche Bahn has literally decades of maintenance to catch up on. Even if the Deutsche Bahn does everything right from now on, the next decade is going to be very painful for German train commuters.

[lionkor]

Now the trains have to actually arrive and depart within, say, 5 minutes of the planned time, and we will be in the 21st century finally.