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Traffic noise mapping of Indian roads through smartphone user community participation

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Abstract

Road traffic noise pollution is a global hazard, and rapid urbanization has aggravated the problem. This paper explores a novel approach which involves a smartphone user community to monitor the prevalent noise. The system involves a client application on smartphones that records noise, processes the information and communicates to a server and shares the information as visual noise levels on Google® Maps. A fuzzy logic-based classification of noise is proposed. Results from residential, commercial, and industrial areas of the northern region of India are demonstrated. The noise levels are generally found to be higher than the prescribed standards. The experiment demonstrates the huge potential of user community participation in monitoring noise pollution.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the volunteers for data collection and sharing their experience on noise levels. Contributions of some volunteers, on providing responses about the impact of environmental noise level on them, are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Scholar, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Thapar University, Patiala, India

    Rajiv Kumar

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Curtin University, Bentley, Australia

    Abhijit Mukherjee

  3. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Thapar University, Patiala, India

    V. P. Singh

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  1. Rajiv Kumar
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  2. Abhijit Mukherjee
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  3. V. P. Singh
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Correspondence to Rajiv Kumar.

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Kumar, R., Mukherjee, A. & Singh, V.P. Traffic noise mapping of Indian roads through smartphone user community participation. Environ Monit Assess 189, 17 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-016-5741-1

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