The Effects of Signal System and Traffic Flow on the Sound Level

Traffic noise is a major pollution problem in Hong Kong and many large cities throughout the world. Indeed, traffic noise and traffic flow patterns interact, however, there is a very little research effort studying it. To the best knowledge of the authors, the present research is the first on-site measurement study about the effect of a traffic signal on the noise level of moving vehicles. Various cases of “stop and go” and “non-stop” were considered in the traffic noise measurements, where the terms “stop and go” and “non-stop” represent a traffic road with and without traffic signals, respectively. The L₁₀ and L_eq noise levels were recorded and compared in the present study. From the results, it was found that the stop time and traffic flow are factors that also affect the sound level properties.