Modelling of urban traffic noise using a systems approach

An urban traffic noise model was developed using a systems approach. This paper presents the urban traffic noise system, which consists of various subsystems – such as road traffic, human, environment, traffic network and urban prosperity subsystems – along with their associated parameters. The traffic noise model is based on graph theory. A composite traffic noise index, called the permanent noise index (PNI), was derived. An illustrative example of traffic noise data in the city of Patiala, India, is presented. This explains the different steps of the methodology for evaluation of the ‘permanent function’ and its correlation with the noise level descriptor Leq. The highest and lowest PNI values were found to be 2·75 and 0·90, corresponding to Leq values of 80·1 dB(A) and 66·2 dB(A), respectively. The value of R2 was determined to be 0·83. The error between the measured and predicted values of Leq for the testing data set was 0·2–1·6 dB(A).