THE EFFECTS OF VEGETATION ON THE PERCEPTION OF TRAFFIC NOISE

This study was designed to investigate the effects of vegetation on th e perception of sound using both real traffic sources and reproduced r ecorded traffic noise. Subjective assessments were made of traffic noi se at locations within three roadside sites with varying degrees of vi sual screening by vegetation and at the Transport Research Laboratory' s Noise Barrier Test Facility (NBTF) using an artificial sound source. It was shown that for the same noise exposure level average ratings o f noisiness were higher where the degree of visual screening was highe r. That is, on average listeners were more sensitive to noise when the source was visually screened. It was further shown that the visual at tractiveness of vegetation did not appear to benefit noise sensitivity . (C) 1998 Transport Research Laboratory. Published by Elsevier Scienc e Ltd. All rights reserved.