TITLE: New Perspectives in Road Traffic Noise Prediction
KEYWORDS: Noise Control, Road Traffic Noise, Traffic Theory, Dynamical Models.
ABSTRACT: Road vehicular traffic is one of the most important noise sources in urban environment, together with railways and industries. The annoyance produced by exposure to road traffic noise has been deeply investigated in scientific literature, resulting to affect mental and physical health in terms of sleep and/or conversation disturbance, hearing loss, cardiovascular problems, anxiety and stress, etc.. Thus, the need for modelling of acoustical noise produced by road vehicular traffic is a significant issue nowadays. Usually Traffic Noise predictive Models (TNMs) are adopted to monitor the equivalent noise level at the receivers and to define risk classes for each area, according to the purpose of the activities therein. If possible, experimental measurements are performed, in order to tune models parameters and to verify noise predictions. These models are generally based on a statistical approach and give an evaluation of the equivalent noise level in a certain point, with a given flow of vehicles. The shortcomings of these models are highlighted and discussed on a review process and experimental data comparison basis. Different theoretical approaches can be adopted in the modelling of the source and in the description of the propagation, resulting in interesting elements to be considered in the model build up. The integration with dynamical traffic theory represents the new frontier of road traffic noise prediction.
