Noise health effects constitute one of the most widespread public health threats. The Commission intends to provide measures to prevent noises from rail vehicles not only for comfort reasons but also because of important health threats, like cardiovascular effects and cognitive impairment. Since the most important source for rail noise is freight trains that operate around the clock, the problem of noise emission is even more critical. Despite the introduction of limit values for new and renewed rolling stock including freight wagons through the Noise Technical Specification for Interoperability (TSI), both the long service time of the rolling stock and the logarithmic nature of noise perception would take several years before the overall emission from freight trains could be reduced significantly if no additional measures addressing the existing fleet were introduced. At present there are no legal obligations in rail practice that would stress the need for financial support and/or economic incentives which adds to the lack of available inexpensive technologies. Therefore the Commission intends to promote the most effective and efficient measures to implement retrofitting at European level.