The European Commission issued a contract to EUROCONTROL in December 2007, following a request for support, to develop a European regional noise model, with technical support from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the United Kingdom's Civil Aviation Authority (UK CAA). The objective of the project, known as STAPES, was to develop a multi-airport noise model capable of providing valuable input into both European and international policy-making assessments, in particular ICAO's Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP).
In line with the planned schedule, a first version of the STAPES model was developed and delivered in October 2008 and is compliant with the best practice modelling guidance provided by both ECAC Doc. 29 3rd Edition1 and ICAO Document 99112. A thorough validation and verification (V&V) process was carefully applied to the model and STAPES was finally endorsed by the CAEP Steering Group at its meeting in June 2009 for use within ICAO CAEP policy assessments.
