scholarly journals Aggregate Impact of Anomalous Noise Events on the WASN-Based Computation of Road Traffic Noise Levels in Urban and Suburban Environments

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesc Alías ◽  
Ferran Orga ◽  
Rosa Ma Alsina-Pagès ◽  
Joan Claudi Socoró
Keyword(s):  
Sensor Networks ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Pollution ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Integration Time ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Noise Mapping ◽  
Acoustic Data

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.

scholarly journals MODELLING URBAN NOISE IN CITYGML ADE: CASE OF THE NETHERLANDS

2017 ◽  
Vol IV-4/W5 ◽  
pp. 73-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Kumar ◽  
H. Ledoux ◽  
T. J. F. Commandeur ◽  
J. E. Stoter
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Input Data ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Motor Vehicles ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Noise Mapping ◽  
Urban Noise

Road traffic and industrial noise has become a major source of discomfort and annoyance among the residents in urban areas. More than 44 % of the EU population is regularly exposed to road traffic noise levels over 55 dB, which is currently the maximum accepted value prescribed by the Environmental Noise Directive for road traffic noise. With continuously increasing population and number of motor vehicles and industries, it is very unlikely to hope for noise levels to diminish in the near future. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor urban noise, so as to make mitigation plans and to deal with its adverse effects. The 2002/49/EC Environmental Noise Directive aims to determine the exposure of an individual to environmental noise through noise mapping. One of the most important steps in noise mapping is the creation of input data for simulation. At present, it is done semi-automatically (and sometimes even manually) by different companies in different ways and is very time consuming and can lead to errors in the data. In this paper, we present our approach for automatically creating input data for noise simulations. Secondly, we focus on using 3D city models for presenting the results of simulation for the noise arising from road traffic and industrial activities in urban areas. We implemented a few noise modelling standards for industrial and road traffic noise in CityGML by extending the existing Noise ADE with new objects and attributes. This research is a steping stone in the direction of standardising the input and output data for noise studies and for reconstructing the 3D data accordingly.

scholarly journals Detection of Anomalous Noise Events for Real-Time Road-Traffic Noise Mapping: The Dynamap’s project case study

Noise Mapping ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesc Alías ◽  
Rosa Ma Alsina-Pagès ◽  
Ferran Orga ◽  
Joan Claudi Socoró
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Noise Pollution ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Mapping

Abstract Environmental noise is increasing year after year, especially in urban and suburban areas. Besides annoyance, environmental noise also causes harmful health effects on people. The Environmental Noise Directive 2002/49/EC (END) is the main instrument of the European Union to identify and combat noise pollution, followed by the CNOSSOS-EU methodological framework. In compliance with the END legislation, the European Member States are required to publish noise maps and action plans every five years. The emergence of Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks (WASNs) have changed the paradigm to address the END regulatory requirements, allowing the dynamic ubiquitous measurement of environmental noise pollution. Following the END, the LIFE DYNAMAP project aims to develop a WASN-based low-cost noise mapping system to monitor the acoustic impact of road infrastructures in real time. Those acoustic events unrelated to regular traffic noise should be removed from the equivalent noise level calculations to avoid biasing the noise map generation. This work describes the different approaches developed within the DYNAMAP project to implement an Anomalous Noise Event Detector on the low-cost sensors of the network, considering both synthetic and real-life acoustic data.Moreover, the paper reflects on several open challenges, discussing how to tackle them for the future deployment of WASN-based noise monitoring systems in real-life operating conditions.

scholarly journals Characterization of a WASN-Based Urban Acoustic Dataset for the Dynamic Mapping of Road Traffic Noise

Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesc Alías ◽  
Joan Claudi Socoró ◽  
Ferran Orga ◽  
Rosa Ma Alsina-Pagès
Keyword(s):  
Sensor Networks ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Acoustic Sensor ◽  
Noise Mapping ◽  
Acoustic Environment ◽  
Operation Conditions ◽  
Dynamic Mapping ◽  
Acoustic Sensor Networks

Road Traffic Noise (RTN) is one of the main pollutants in urban and suburban areas, negatively affecting the quality of life of their inhabitants. In the context of the European LIFE DYNAMAP project, two Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks (WASN) have been deployed to monitor RTN: one in District 9 of Milan, and another along the A90 motorway of Rome. Since the dynamic mapping system should be able to identify and remove those Anomalous Noise Events (ANEs) unrelated to regular road traffic (e.g., sirens, horns, speech, and doors), an Anomalous Noise Event Detector (ANED) has been included in the dynamic noise mapping pipeline to avoid biasing the computation of the equivalent RTN levels. After deploying the 24 low-cost acoustic sensor networks in both pilot areas, WASN-based acoustic datasets were built to adapt the previous version of the ANED algorithm to run in real-operation conditions. In this work, we describe the preliminary results of the analysis of the 154 h WASN-based urban acoustic dataset obtained from the Milan city in terms of the main characteristics of ANEs. The results confirm the unbalanced nature of the problem (83.7% of the data corresponds to RTN), showing the urban WASN-based dataset a larger number of ANEs with higher local predominance than what was observed in the previous expert-based recording campaign, which underlines the importance of the accurate modeling of the urban acoustic environment to train the ANED properly.

scholarly journals Road Traffic Noise on the Santa Marta City Tourist Route

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 7196
Author(s):  
Dámaris A. Jiménez-Uribe ◽  
Darwin Daniels ◽  
Zoë L. Fleming ◽  
Andrés M. Vélez-Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Flow ◽  
Noise Level ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Time Of Day ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Sampling Point ◽  
Heavy Vehicles ◽  
Noise Levels

The objective of this study was to determine the influence of vehicular traffic on the environmental noise levels of the Santa Marta City tourist route on the Colombian coast. An analysis of vehicle types and frequencies at various times of the day over nearly a year helped to track the main sources of environmental noise pollution. Five sampling points were selected, which were distributed over 12 km, with three classified as peripheral urban and two as suburban. The average traffic flow was 966 vehicles/h and was mainly composed of automobiles, with higher values in the peripheral urban area. The noise level was 103.3 dBA, with background and peak levels of 87.2 and 107.3 dBA, respectively. The noise level was higher during the day; however, there were no differences between weekdays and weekends. The results from the analysis of variance showed that the number of vehicles and the noise levels varied greatly according to the time of day and sampling point location. The peak and mean noise levels were correlated with the number of automobiles, buses and heavy vehicles. The mean noise levels were similar at all sample points despite the traffic flow varying, and the background noise was only correlated for automobiles (which varied much more than the heavy vehicles between day and night).

scholarly journals Road traffic noise assessment in a hospital area in Umuarama - Brazil

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (74) ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Junqueira Moreira ◽  
Warde Antonieta Da Fonseca-Zang ◽  
Cecília de Castro Bolina ◽  
Stella Alonso Rocha ◽  
Paulo Henrique Trombetta Zannin
Keyword(s):  
Strong Correlation ◽  
Sound Pressure ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Pollution ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Vehicular Traffic ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Hospital Environments ◽  
Noise Assessment

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.

scholarly journals The “sound of silence” in Granada during the COVID-19 lockdown

Noise Mapping ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerónimo Vida Manzano ◽  
José Antonio Almagro Pastor ◽  
Rafael García Quesada ◽  
Francesco Aletta ◽  
Tin Oberman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Noise Sources ◽  
Comparison Results ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Abstract Exceptional circumstances in the city of Granada due to the COVID-19 lockdown have provided the opportunity to characterise the impact of humans on its urban acoustic climate. Traditional environmental noise management and urban sound planning usually take into account noise sources in the city, such as industrial activities or road traffic noise, in model estimations, as well as in empirical research. But trying to isolate human impact by itself, human activity including social activity, walking, talking or just going around the city, has always been a difficult or even impossible task. The COVID-19 lockdown measures have provided the opportunity to study urban climate as never before, affected just by natural or animal noise sources. Previous soundscape research at some iconic sites in the city of Granada carried out in 2019 before the lockdown and a special measuring campaign carried out at the same locations during the lockdown in 2020 offered valuable information on sound levels and local characteristics in order to carry out this comparison. Results show a great change in environmental noise levels that is interesting not only because of its magnitude, but also for its implications, especially at those sites where social human activity was an identifying characteristic. Natural or animal sounds became surprisingly evident at some study sites, especially where road traffic noise dramatically decreased, leading to significantly lower background noise levels. Important spectral changes are observed before and during the lockdown, suggesting a shift from anthropic to animal sources in the acoustic environment.

scholarly journals 3D noise mapping for preselected locations of urban area with and without noise barriers: A case study of Delhi, India

Noise Mapping ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-83
Author(s):  
Pervez Alam ◽  
Kafeel Ahmad ◽  
S. S. Afsar ◽  
Nasim Akhtar
Keyword(s):  
Noise Level ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Noise Pollution ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Barriers ◽  
Noise Mapping

AbstractNoise pollution has been rising as a critical issue in recent days particularly for the people living in urban areas. This study has been conducted to find out the effects of traffic induced noise on nearby residential building through 3D noise mapping with and without noise Barriers. Monitoring has been carried out at various densely populated preselected locations of Delhi, India. Thereafter, 3D noise mapping has been done using hourly average noise levels for the locations exposed with maximum noise. The developed 3D noise map shows the variation of noise level along X, Y and Z direction for all selected locations before and after installation of noise barriers. Moreover, the result also shows that exact assessment of noise impact is possible through 3D noise mapping, when a multistory building close to the source of noise is taken into consideration. This paper also elaborates the adequate height, distance and NRC value of noise barrier to reduce the effect of road traffic noise on nearby high rise building. Reduction pattern of noise level can easily be visualized and evaluated by using these maps. This type of study could support decision makers during adaptation of suitable remedial measures.

scholarly journals Development of Traffic Noise Prediction Model in an Educational Urban Area

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (11) ◽  
pp. 2588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hasan Mosa Al-Mosawe ◽  
Dhirgham Alobaydi ◽  
Amjad Albayati
Keyword(s):  
Prediction Model ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Pollution ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Vehicle Speed ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Education Environment ◽  
The University

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.

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

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (72) ◽  
Author(s):  
Geanesson Alberto de Oliveira Santos ◽  
Eriberto Oliveira do Nascimento ◽  
Paulo Henrique Trombeta Zannin
Keyword(s):  
Noise Exposure ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Pollution ◽  
Sound Level ◽  
Urban Traffic ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Rapid Transit ◽  
Noise Levels

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.

scholarly journals 2-D noise maps for tier-2 city urban Indian roads

Noise Mapping ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dipeshkumar R. Sonaviya ◽  
Bhaven N. Tandel
Keyword(s):  
Road Traffic ◽  
Traffic Noise ◽  
Field Measurements ◽  
Noise Pollution ◽  
Heterogeneous Traffic ◽  
Computer Simulation Model ◽  
Road Traffic Noise ◽  
Noise Mapping ◽  
Traffic Condition ◽  
Traffic Composition

Abstract In today’s era, vehicular noise pollution has been identified as a serious danger that influence the attribute of the urban regions. To identify the influence of noise effects, noise maps are very useful. A noise mapping study has been carried out to study the propagation of urban road traffic noise in the areas along with field measurements. The computer simulation model (Sound- PLAN software) is used to developed noise maps. In developing nations like India, traffic composition is heterogeneous. These traffic compositions contain vehicles, which have different sizes, speeds variations and operating systems. Because of fluctuating speeds, deficiency of lane disciplines, and non-authorized parking on main road lanes, honking events becomes inevitable, which changes and affects the urban soundscape of nations like India. Due to horn events (heterogeneous traffic condition), noise level (LAeq) increase by 0.5–8 dB (A) as compared to homogeneous traffic conditions.

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