The _______________ has long been the standard airport noise prediction model used by airports and involves a complex and detailed procedure for determining the DNL noise contour area for a specific mix of aircraft

• A. Integrated Noise Model (INM)
• B. Noise Prediction System (NPS)
• C. Aircraft Noise Calculator (ANC)
• D. Contour Noise Predictor (CNP)

Answer: (A)

Predicting how a mix of aircraft affects surrounding communities is done with a tool built specifically for airport noise exposure, including the Day-Night Average Sound Level contour. The Integrated Noise Model is that standard, developed for and widely used by airports to produce the DNL contour by taking into account the exact aircraft types, their traffic mix, flight paths, runway usage, and operating conditions, then applying a detailed propagation and shielding model to map noise levels across surrounding areas. It handles the complex inputs and transforms them into a contour map that shows where DNL thresholds are exceeded, which is exactly what the question describes.

Other named tools don’t correspond to the established airport noise prediction framework for generating DNL contours from a specific aircraft mix, so they aren’t the commonly used solution in this context.