Investigation of the Vibroacoustic Climate Inside the Buses Solaris Urbino 12 Used in Public Transport Systems

Abstract

Despite new technological solutions and attempts to improve the working conditions during the operation of vehicles, city bus drivers are still exposed to negative impacts of noise and vibrations, causing stress, increased fatigue and lead to numerous diseases. Therefore it seems merited to investigate the acoustic climate (i.e. acoustic phenomena caused by the sources of noise of vibrations in the function of time and space) and the working conditions during the operation of Solaris Urbino 12 vehicles, widely used in public transport systems. The main aim of the research was to show the inuence of the 5 day, 8 h working week on selected psycho-physiological parameters on a driver's organism. It was assumed that the main aggravating factor of the driver's organism are vibroacoustics conditions of a work place. The results of this research will be presented in due course. This work presents the research on vibroacoustic climate in one of many city buses used Solaris Urbino 12. Investigation of the vibroacoustic climate is the branch of environmental biophysics. The measurements, tests and analysis are genuine because they were carried out under real conditions, with passengers, in the long stretches of time and in the entire route of the vehicle. Presented results are very rarely reported in the literature.

Passenger Noise and Whole-Body Vibration Exposure—A Comparative Field Study of Commercial Buses

“…They found that the normalized exposure levels were all over 65 dBA in all cases making the work environment 'uncomfortable' according to the Brazilian Legislation for Ergonomics. Furthermore, Damijan [26] measured noise levels in the passenger section of buses and reported that the equivalent noise levels in the center and rear part of the buses during the ride were 62.4 dBA and 67.9 dBA respectively. The ANOVA test revealed that the bus type had a significant effect on the noise level inside the buses and the post-hoc analysis showed that, the difference in the noise level measured in the 3 types of buses was significant.…”

“…The results of the present study indicated that the vibrations at the passenger seats were non uncomfortable vibrations. In contrast; Damijan [26] reported that vibration at the passenger seat during ride was 0.4 ms -2 which is considered as a little uncomfortable vibration according to ISO 2631-1-1997. Also, Okunribido et al [30] measured whole-body vibration transmitted to bus drivers and their results…”