WASN-Based Spectro-Temporal Analysis and Clustering of Road Traffic Noise in Urban and Suburban Areas
Environmental noise has become one of the principal health risks for urban dwellers and road traffic noise (RTN) is considered to be the main source of these adverse effects. To address this problem, strategic noise maps and corresponding action plans have been developed throughout Europe in recent...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-01-01
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| Series: | Applied Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/3/981 |
| _version_ | 1797489384013955072 |
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| author | Joan Claudi Socoró Francesc Alías Rosa Ma Alsina-Pagès |
| author_facet | Joan Claudi Socoró Francesc Alías Rosa Ma Alsina-Pagès |
| author_sort | Joan Claudi Socoró |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Environmental noise has become one of the principal health risks for urban dwellers and road traffic noise (RTN) is considered to be the main source of these adverse effects. To address this problem, strategic noise maps and corresponding action plans have been developed throughout Europe in recent years in response to the European Noise Directive 2002/49/EC (END), especially in populated cities. Recently, wireless acoustic sensor networks (WASNs) have started to serve as an alternative to static noise maps to monitor urban areas by gathering environmental noise data in real time. Several studies have analysed and categorized the different acoustic environments described in the END (e.g., traffic, industrial, leisure, etc.). However, most of them have only considered the dynamic evolution of the A-weighted equivalent noise levels <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mi>L</mi><mrow><mi>A</mi><mi>e</mi><mi>q</mi></mrow></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula> over different periods of time. In order to focus on the analysis of RTN solely, this paper introduces a clustering methodology to analyse and group spectro-temporal profiles of RTN collected simultaneously across an area of interest. The experiments were conducted on two acoustic databases collected during a weekday and a weekend day through WASNs deployed in the pilot areas of the LIFE+ DYNAMAP project. The results obtained show that the clustering of RTN, based on its spectro-temporal patterns, yields different solutions on weekdays and at weekends in both environments, being larger than those found in the suburban environment and lower than the number of clusters in the urban scenario. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T00:16:46Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-34c14c479c29497c90194ee59354377b |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-3417 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T00:16:46Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Applied Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-34c14c479c29497c90194ee59354377b2023-11-23T15:49:55ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172022-01-0112398110.3390/app12030981WASN-Based Spectro-Temporal Analysis and Clustering of Road Traffic Noise in Urban and Suburban AreasJoan Claudi Socoró0Francesc Alías1Rosa Ma Alsina-Pagès2GTM—Grup de Recerca en Tecnologies Mèdia, La Salle-Universitat Ramon Llull, Sant Joan de la Salle, 42, 08022 Barcelona, SpainGTM—Grup de Recerca en Tecnologies Mèdia, La Salle-Universitat Ramon Llull, Sant Joan de la Salle, 42, 08022 Barcelona, SpainGTM—Grup de Recerca en Tecnologies Mèdia, La Salle-Universitat Ramon Llull, Sant Joan de la Salle, 42, 08022 Barcelona, SpainEnvironmental noise has become one of the principal health risks for urban dwellers and road traffic noise (RTN) is considered to be the main source of these adverse effects. To address this problem, strategic noise maps and corresponding action plans have been developed throughout Europe in recent years in response to the European Noise Directive 2002/49/EC (END), especially in populated cities. Recently, wireless acoustic sensor networks (WASNs) have started to serve as an alternative to static noise maps to monitor urban areas by gathering environmental noise data in real time. Several studies have analysed and categorized the different acoustic environments described in the END (e.g., traffic, industrial, leisure, etc.). However, most of them have only considered the dynamic evolution of the A-weighted equivalent noise levels <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mi>L</mi><mrow><mi>A</mi><mi>e</mi><mi>q</mi></mrow></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula> over different periods of time. In order to focus on the analysis of RTN solely, this paper introduces a clustering methodology to analyse and group spectro-temporal profiles of RTN collected simultaneously across an area of interest. The experiments were conducted on two acoustic databases collected during a weekday and a weekend day through WASNs deployed in the pilot areas of the LIFE+ DYNAMAP project. The results obtained show that the clustering of RTN, based on its spectro-temporal patterns, yields different solutions on weekdays and at weekends in both environments, being larger than those found in the suburban environment and lower than the number of clusters in the urban scenario.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/3/981road traffic noisespectro-temporal analysisWASNclustering |
| spellingShingle | Joan Claudi Socoró Francesc Alías Rosa Ma Alsina-Pagès WASN-Based Spectro-Temporal Analysis and Clustering of Road Traffic Noise in Urban and Suburban Areas Applied Sciences road traffic noise spectro-temporal analysis WASN clustering |
| title | WASN-Based Spectro-Temporal Analysis and Clustering of Road Traffic Noise in Urban and Suburban Areas |
| title_full | WASN-Based Spectro-Temporal Analysis and Clustering of Road Traffic Noise in Urban and Suburban Areas |
| title_fullStr | WASN-Based Spectro-Temporal Analysis and Clustering of Road Traffic Noise in Urban and Suburban Areas |
| title_full_unstemmed | WASN-Based Spectro-Temporal Analysis and Clustering of Road Traffic Noise in Urban and Suburban Areas |
| title_short | WASN-Based Spectro-Temporal Analysis and Clustering of Road Traffic Noise in Urban and Suburban Areas |
| title_sort | wasn based spectro temporal analysis and clustering of road traffic noise in urban and suburban areas |
| topic | road traffic noise spectro-temporal analysis WASN clustering |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/3/981 |
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