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ABSTRACT

Noise pollution from transportation systems devalues the environment and carries with it substantial social and economic costs. New legislation aims to reduce the impact of transport noise. This study outlines how wireless sensor networks can be used to assess accurately the socio-economic benefits of noise mitigation policies. Various economic methods of estimating the disamenity of noise are explored. Current practices for predicting the benefits of noise reduction strategies are examined, and the need for a long-term monitoring solution within the current system is observed. Sensor network with delay tolerance (SeNDT) units are presented as a wireless sensor networking device capable of monitoring environmental noise levels. Preliminary results from the SeNDT pilot study deployments are presented. These readings are used to estimate both the personally perceived and monetary gains resulting from the implementation of a new traffic policy that bans heavy goods vehicles in the city center of Dublin, Ireland. Initial calculations indicate that the ban will reduce the number of people annoyed by road traffic noise by approximately 8% and constitute a monetary saving of €77.50 ($105) per household in the area per year.

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Transport strategies in Dublin before 1990 were primarily road based with particular emphasis on increasing road space within the city for the car. In the early 1990s, however, the Dublin Transportation Initiative recommended a more innovative strategy, the core of which centered on public transport. Implementation of the strategy is currently under way, but increased economic activity, with associated increases in car ownership and usage, has undermined the potential to address the imbalance between transport demand and supply, particularly in the shorter term. As a result, feasible and reliable public transport alternatives do not currently exist for car users on some radial corridors. The ongoing implementation of bus lanes and an increase in the number of buses should go some way in improving the reliability of the service. It is against this background that road use pricing is considered. The potential user response to road user charging is examined by means of a pilot action project to investigate whether further evaluation of the measure would be justified on a larger sample. The distance-and-time-based time-differentiated pricing method used in the pilot action induced a significant decrease of 22 percent in car trips and a 23 percent reduction in distance traveled during the peak period, reflecting the relatively high road use charges applied in that period. The total distance traveled decreased by 13 percent. The road user charge reflects the marginal external costs of car travel in the peak period in Dublin.