Numerical study of individuals exposure to road-noise in urban environments

Abstract

In this paper a method is presented, which allows to simulate the traffic noise exposure of people living in an urban area. This is in contrast to classical noise maps, where the noise exposure of locations is calculated. A temporally resolved noise mapping is used in combination with an agent model, which simulates the location of persons in an urban area. Noise exposure is then assigned to agents based on their specific locations throughout the day, and averaged over time. The question is answered what difference in noise exposure the method shows in comparison to classical noise-maps. The method was successfully applied for a part of Berlin. It is shown that the average noise to which the agents are exposed during the day is increased due to their motion. This is not always due to the fact that people spend more time in places with high noise exposure. Rather, the usual consideration of the noise exposure in a log scale is responsible for this. This always results in a dominance of the noisier locations in the daily mean of the considered agents. It is to be discussed whether this shift towards higher noise exposure corresponds to the actual subjective perception of persons.