Development of a Road Traffic Noise Prediction Model

Abstract

Environmental noise is an undesirable byproduct of urbanization. Although we do not notice, this unwanted or excessive sound makes a significant damage to the health of the people and has hazardous impacts on the environment. From the noise sources we interact daily, perhaps the most invasive and difficult to avoid noise source is the transportation noise. The major contributor to the transportation noise is highway traffic noise. The objective of this work is to develop a road traffic noise prediction model for the roads of Sri Lanka. The developed model is capable of predicting the combined traffic noise generated from vehicles in highways. Traffic flow data used for constructing this model consisted of vehicle noise, vehicle class, vehicle speed and the distance from the traffic flow line was collected from several locations of the Western Province. Microsoft .Net® platform was used for the development of the simulator and the GUI. The predictions made by the model were found to be within ±11dBA accuracy with respect to the actual experimental observations.