A CAD APPROACH TO HIGHWAY CORRIDOR ANALYSIS FOR TRAFFIC NOISE

Abstract

No one can deny that the mechanised transport has greatly affected the development of modern society. In the metropolitan cities the traffic noise is one of the major constituent of environmental pollution. In some of the cities the noise level has exceeded the level of human tolerance. Therefore it has become very important to have means of evaluatting probable noise level adjacent to highway so that noise may be considered in the design of highways features, as well as, developing other land-uses. The comprehensive analysis of road traffic noise is becoming increasingly complex. This. complexity is produced by increasing size of urban areas and consequently increasing demand for travel. Contending with increasing complexity, a CAD approach for traffic noise analysis is required. In the present dissertation, an attempt has been made to develop a mathematical model to predict the traffic noise adjacent to highways which suits the Indian mixed traffic flow conditions. A package TNAP has also been developed for analysis of traffic noise. This package is such that it can check invalid inputs and sometimes it also gives warning messages. Programs are user friendly, interactive and menu driven. The package enables us to determine the various noise parameters such as L10, L50, L90, Leg etc. from the noise data collected by noise level meter. It has provision for predicting the road traffic noise from the hourly clasified volume. The probable right of way based on noise consideration can also be determined. The packge provides facility to obtain the combined noise level by adding the powers, whether in the form of propagating waves or reactive sound fields. The menu part of the package has been written in Turbo--C while other programs are in FORTRAN77. PLOT88 graphic package acts as tool for graphics in main programs. The scope of the present work has been limited to traffic noise analysis and noise level prediction. Studies for noise abatement have also been recommended.