Noise abatement and traffic safety: The trade-off of quieter engines and pavements on vehicle detection

Traffic Sounds and Cycling Safety: The Use of Electronic Devices by Cyclists and the Quietness of Hybrid and Electric Cars

“…Faster travelling cars generate more noise (Garay-Vega et al, 2010) and as speed increased, cars were detected sooner and thus at greater distance (and sooner) ( Barton et al, 2013;Barton, Ulrich & Lew, 2012). The worst detectability levels were found among juveniles and older participants (Hong, Cho & Ko, 2013;Mendonça et al, 2013) and on low-noise pavements, that is, asphalt as opposed to cobble stones (Mendonça et al, 2013). Not only detection of cars but also their correct localisation is important for pedestrians when making crossing decisions.…”

“…In the same study, the signal-to-noise ratio needed to distinguish between these paths was higher than the signal-to-noise ratio needed for vehicle detection. Kim et al (2012a) d Wall Emerson et al (2011 Hong, Cho & Ko (2013) f Mendonça et al(2013) g Kim et al (2012b) No studies into the detectability and localisation of (hybrid) electric cars performed with cyclists were found in the literature. Since hybrid cars emit less sound at low speeds, it can be expected that similar differences in detection as for pedestrians will apply for cyclists.…”

“…pedestrian/ cyclist detection systems and the use of cobbled pavements in low-speed traffic environment. Cobblestones reach very high detection percentages for both conventional and hybrid cars driven at speeds above 30 km/h across various ambient sound levels (Mendonça et al, 2013). The suitability of cobblestones for ensuring high detectability of vehicles at lower speeds, however, still needs to be explored.…”

Tyre/Road Noise Annoyance Assessment Through Virtual Sounds

“…Previous works have demonstrated that pavement type and vehicle noise signiicantly afect the levels of environmental noise and associated subjective annoyance measurement [40] and detection levels [41]. Vehicle type afects both detection levels and annoyance ratings with a positive correlation between sound intensity, detection rates and annoyance.…”

Modelling Tyre-Road Noise with Data Mining Techniques

“…The advantages of this measure are the relative low cost and capacity to reduce annoyance directly (Freitas et al, 2012), which is not the case of traffic related measures (Kaczmarek, Preis, 2010). The disadvantages are the lower mechanical durability and lower detectability of vehicles by pedestrians (Mendonça et al, 2013), as well as low acoustic durability when they have high voids contents (Gołębiewski, 2008). Even though, at the present, it is much preferred noise mitigation measure.…”