scholarly journals Evaluation of road traffic noise near tube-shaped bus rapid transit shelters

Author(s):  
Geanesson Alberto de Oliveira Santos ◽  
Eriberto Oliveira do Nascimento ◽  
Paulo Henrique Trombeta Zannin

Noise pollution is generally imperceptible, but it can cause various disorders, including psychological disorders, hearing loss and cardiovascular disease. Curitiba Municipal Law 10.625:2002 establishes upper limits of daytime noise exposure according to zoning areas and land use in the City of Curitiba. The purpose of this study was to evaluate noise immissions of urban traffic in the proximities of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) shelters in Curitiba, Brazil. Daytime traffic noise levels were measured between 8am and 5pm near the entrance of these bus shelters in July and August 2014. Fifty-four measurement points at parks, residences, stores, schools, universities and hospitals in different zoning groups of the municipality were selected as a function of the type of population. The noise levels were recorded using a class I sound level meter. Brazil has no specific standard or law for traffic noise immissions, so the guidelines of the Brazilian standard ABNT NBR 10151:2000 were used. It was concluded that 74% of the measured noise levels varied from 70 to 76 dB(A). Only point 48, close to the Antônio Meireles Sobrinho BRT Shelter, was considered free of noise pollution. Traffic noise accounts for an overall average of 73 dB(A). A few bus shelters installed on the same street had an absolute average difference of 3 dB(A), while bus shelters located farther away from roads were the least noisy. The lowest average traffic noise levels, i.e., 71 dB(A), were recorded on roads for exclusive use by BRT buses.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 12561
Author(s):  
Ablenya Grangeiro de Barros ◽  
Jarl K. Kampen ◽  
Cedric Vuye

Low-noise thin asphalt layers (TALs) are a feasible solution to mitigate road traffic noise in urban environments. Nevertheless, the impacts of this type of noise intervention are reported mostly regarding noise levels, while non-acoustic aspects influencing the population perception are still little-known. This study investigates the implementation of TALs in two streets of Antwerp, Belgium. The effectiveness of the intervention was measured via noise modelling and acoustic measurements of road traffic noise. A reduction of 2.8 dB in noise exposure was observed in Lden and Lnight, while SPB measurements showed decreases up to 5.2 dB on the roadside. The subjective impacts of the TALs were evaluated via self-administered surveys and compared to results from control streets. The annoyance indicators were positively impacted by the TALs implementation, resulting in annoyance levels similar or lower than in the control streets. The TALs did not impact the reported physical complaints, sleep quality, and comfort level to perform activities.


10.29007/bngd ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alpesh Sankhat ◽  
C. B. Mishra ◽  
Shailesh Parmar

Road traffic noise is likely the most thorough and inescapable kind of noise pollution and is in charge of negative effects that are destructive to nature and the nature of group health of mankind. Residential area/towns close by roads are additionally casualty of the issue, extraordinarily have the high danger of hearing loss due to the traffic noise exposure. The Objectives of the present review were to concentrate the attributes of hearing loss and survey the predominance of hearing loss because of traffic on 52 people working 8 to 12 hours close to the periphery of NH 8E going through Una Town by performing audiometric test. Consequence of the present study demonstrates that hearing impairment are common in people persistently exposed to traffic noise. The effect of high-level traffic noise leads to temporary threshold shift and if any person is exposed to such noisy environment may suffer from permanent threshold shift after long period of time.


Author(s):  
Samantha Junqueira Moreira ◽  
Warde Antonieta Da Fonseca-Zang ◽  
Cecília de Castro Bolina ◽  
Stella Alonso Rocha ◽  
Paulo Henrique Trombetta Zannin

In hospital environments, high noise levels can result in damage to patients' treatments, delaying their rest and recovery. The sound pressure level (SPL) in hospital areas during the day must not exceed 50 dB and 45 dB (A) at night, according to NBR 10.151/2019. This research aimed to carry out environmental monitoring of equivalent sound pressure levels (LAeq) at fifteen points in the vicinity of three hospitals in the central region of the municipality of Umuarama-PR, during working days, at four different times, in the months of August, September and November 2018 and continued in March 2019. To this end, we sought to map the LAeq of the points, compare them with data from municipal and federal legislation and relate the LAeq to the volume of vehicular traffic. The collected SPL were higher than recommended by NBR 10.151 at all times and measurement points, during the week, and when considering the municipal regulations, only one point is in the equipment's accuracy limit. From the statistical analysis, a very strong correlation was observed between LAeq and the total volume of vehicles, and also a strong correlation between the descriptors L10 and L50 and the volume of vehicles. The Traffic Noise Index (TNI) was also calculated and the LAeq values ​​were compared with a subjective noise rating. The results show a scenario of noise pollution in the area and there is a need for the application of mitigating measures.


2012 ◽  
Vol 518-523 ◽  
pp. 3838-3842
Author(s):  
Gang Liu ◽  
Li Hua Lin ◽  
Rui Tian

A model of BP neural network for road traffic noise prediction was established by using some road traffic parameters in this paper. Then use this model to predict equivalent continual sound level of road traffic noise, After an overview about the neural approach, the learning; and production phase results are shown and contrasted with the measured data. They point out how good is the approach proposed to model noise pollution in urban areas.


Author(s):  
VV Smirnov

Introduction: Residents of modern cities and settlements are constantly exposed to noise. Excessive noise mainly attributed to road traffic ranks high among the complaints of the general population about living conditions. Careful selection of measuring sites plays an important role in monitoring noise exposure of the population. Current regulations and guidelines set the requirements for measuring and evaluating noise levels in a territory but provide no common approach to determining and selecting priority areas and noise measurement points, to establishing and substantiating appropriate observation periods, and to assessing health risks based on the exposure data. Materials and methods: In situ measurements were taken in residential areas of the historical center (four observation groups with 12 addresses) and new districts of the city (two observation groups with six addresses). Noise levels were measured at three points per address with three 5-minute measurements at a height of 1.5 ± 0.1 m above the ground taken per point. Points with the highest noise exposure levels were selected for organization of acoustic monitoring. Results and discussion: Six major observation groups were formed at 18 urban addresses. The results of measurement showed that statistically significant comparable levels of equivalent and maximum sound were registered in each group based on the same criteria and standard indicators. Grouping of addresses with similar or identical characteristics of observation zones will enable establishing noise exposures without conducting full-scale measurements. Additional observation groups can be formed in the presence of other indicators. Grouping of priority zones by location in observation groups will help register noise levels with minimal effort. Conclusions: Priority zones, points, periods of monitoring and surveillance in observation groups were established and justified. The findings served as the basis for elaboration of method approaches to monitoring and surveillance of road traffic noise exposure. Application of these approaches will contribute to increasing the efficiency of monitoring noise exposures of the population.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (11) ◽  
pp. 2588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hasan Mosa Al-Mosawe ◽  
Dhirgham Alobaydi ◽  
Amjad Albayati

This paper studies the problem of noise pollution on the roads of the campus of University of Baghdad in Baghdad, Iraq. Due to the continuous redevelopment process conducted on the masterplan of the university, the noise levels have significantly impacted the education environment. The purpose of this paper was thus to study the sources caused and maximized the noise levels at the campus and also formulate a prediction model, identified the guidelines used for designing or developing future campus masterplans. Then, the noise levels were measured based on three variables: skid number, vehicle speed, and distance from the classrooms at seven selected points of the main ring road surrounding the university campus. Finally, the finding has shown that the classrooms' locations of the new urban additions, built in the last two decades, were laid out in the prohibited distance of road-traffic noise. In addition to that, it has confirmed that students studying in these classrooms are exposed to noise levels beyond the legislative norms and codes. Further, studying the alternatives used to improve the performance of the education environment in the existing campus of University of Baghdad can be considered in the future research directions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 351-364
Author(s):  
Guillermo Angel Perez Lopez ◽  
Léa Cristina Lucas de Souza

Abstract In this study, we propose an analysis of the vehicular traffic noise indices and comparison between field measurements and prediction data obtained from mathematical models. The study area consists of two pedestrians routes of a medium-sized South American city. University students use these routes in displacements between their universities and residences. We monitored twenty-eight points along the two routes, performing three daytime measurements for each point. The calculated values were obtained from two mathematical predicted models: the English model CRTN (Calculation of Road Traffic Noise) and the French model NMPB-Routes (Nouvelle Methode de Prevision de Bruit). The measurements considered two noise descriptors: the A-weighted equivalent sound level (LAeq) and the noise pollution index (Lnp). The results show that the pedestrians are exposed to excessive levels of vehicle traffic noise along these routes. However, the analysis showed that the two mathematical models achieved good similarity and high performance in the prediction potential. The CRTN model has a better performance than NMPB, proving to be useful as an auxiliary tool in the monitoring of vehicle traffic noise. Finally, we used the CRTN (LAeq) predictions to generate the map of noise pollution indices.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesc Alías ◽  
Ferran Orga ◽  
Rosa Ma Alsina-Pagès ◽  
Joan Claudi Socoró

Environmental noise can be defined as the accumulation of noise pollution caused by sounds generated by outdoor human activities, Road Traffic Noise (RTN) being the main source in urban and suburban areas. To address the negative effects of environmental noise on public health, the European Environmental Noise Directive requires EU member states to tailor noise maps and define the corresponding action plans every five years for major agglomerations and key infrastructures. Noise maps have been hitherto created from expert-based measurements, after cleaning the recorded acoustic data of undesired acoustic events, or Anomalous Noise Events (ANEs). In recent years, Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks (WASNs) have become an alternative. However, most of the proposals focus on measuring global noise levels without taking into account the presence of ANEs. The LIFE DYNAMAP project has developed a WASN-based dynamic noise mapping system to analyze the acoustic impact of road infrastructures in real time based solely on RTN levels. After studying the bias caused by individual ANEs on the computation of the A-weighted equivalent noise levels through an expert-based dataset obtained before installing the sensor networks, this work evaluates the aggregate impact of the ANEs on the RTN measurements in a real-operation environment. To that effect, 304 h and 20 min of labeled acoustic data collected through the two WASNs deployed in both pilot areas have been analyzed, computing the individual and aggregate impacts of ANEs for each sensor location and impact range (low, medium and high) for a 5 min integration time. The study shows the regular occurrence of ANEs when monitoring RTN levels in both acoustic environments, which are especially common in the urban area. Moreover, the results reveal that the aggregate contribution of low- and medium-impact ANEs can become as critical as the presence of high-impact individual ANEs, thus highlighting the importance of their automatic removal to obtain reliable WASN-based RTN maps in real-operation environments.


2013 ◽  
Vol 711 ◽  
pp. 294-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Xing Tong ◽  
Yong Qing Jiang ◽  
Zhen Zhou ◽  
De Zhong Ma

In recent years, with the development of the automobile industry and urban traffic, the pollution of road traffic noise in Harbin has become more and more deleterious. After a detailed survey, it was found that the study about the situation of traffic noise pollution in Harbin was less and the result of evaluation was not accurate enough. In addition, the monitoring spots selected were so many that the workload was too heavy. Aim at this phenomenon, a new and comprehensive monitor on road traffic noise in Harbin and evaluation studies was done. The research was according to the state standards. The selected 35 road sections, the source of traffic noise and the state of traffic noise in Harbin and the state of traffic noise pollution were monitored detailed. The temporal and spatial distribution analysis on the source of traffic noise pollution in Harbin was carried out according to the monitoring datum. Through the monitoring safety analysis and overall character analysis on the state of road traffic noise, it was educed the phenomena of road traffic noise was serious pollution in Harbin. The mean value of equivalent continuous sound pressure level was 72.5dB, exceed state criterion about 2.5dB. Traffic noise of region was concluded that Daowai district>Daoli district>Xiangfang district>Nangang district by the traffic noise monitoring and safety analysis. Finally, the researchers found out the main factors which influence the state of road traffic conditions in Harbin based on the previous studies, and provided the countermeasures to reduce the noise.


Author(s):  
Heng Li ◽  
Hui Xie

Urban expressways can generate excessive noise in the surrounding urban areas, and it tends to be more complex in mountainous cities, due to the undulating terrain, dense population and compact urban structures. This article aims to investigate the objective acoustic environment and road traffic noise exposure, including the noisy evaluation, annoyance and effect of roadside apartments in residential areas close to urban expressways in the high-density, high-rise, mountainous city of Chongqing. Three housing estates were selected for a series of field measurements, questionnaire surveys and noise mapping. There was a significant negative correlation between night-time noise levels and the distances to the urban expressway ( p <  0.01). Moreover, the differences between the daytime and night-time noise levels were generally insignificant (0.7 to 3.6 dBA) at the roadside locations. Differences in reaction to noise exposure in a variety of both person-related and housing condition variables were found, especially between roadside and non-roadside locations or residents. In addition, 75.0% of roadside residents identified the traffic noise as ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ annoying, and 66.7% of them regarded the acoustic environment as the priority environmental factor that needs to be improved. Difference in the ‘bedroom-window orientation’ had a significant effect on subjective noise evaluation. Rectangular-shaped apartments along the roadside obtain better noise reduction capacities than tower-blocks through the simulation. The acoustic performance of road cuttings, as an appropriately designed earth embankment, is improved along with deeper vertical alignment, and slope angles of 30° and 75° should be avoided.


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