Determination of passenger car noise equivalent for mid-sized urban cities in India

Abstract

The heterogeneity in traffic flow composition increases complexity of road traffic noise analysis in mid-sized urban cities of India. Current study aims to determine a passenger car noise equivalent (PCNE) for each class of vehicles with respect to the average traffic stream speed. PCNE denotes number of reference vehicle that are equivalent to a particular vehicle category in terms their noise emission characteristics. In addition of PCNE, noise emission factor (NEF) was also evaluated, which represents how many times a particular vehicle is noisier than reference vehicle. Data was collected for different class of vehicles such as car, motorcycle (bike/scooter), e-rickshaw, light commercial vehicles (minibus, minitruck), bus, vikram-rickshaw, truck, and tractor-trailer on bituminous and concrete pavement surface in Kanpur city, India, to examine the differential effect of pavement on the noise level. Due to higher percentage in traffic stream, car moving at bituminous pavement is taken as a reference vehicle for the analysis. It is reported that each class of vehicles were emitting higher noise at concrete pavement and, consequently having higher PCNE and NEF value. The study suggests to employ PCNE value in traffic noise analysis as it converts the divergent traffic volume in terms of passenger car. © INTER-NOISE 2021 .All right reserved.