Reducing the level of acoustic pollution generated by road transport

Abstract

The current rate of construction and the level of technological development lead to a significant increase in the level of acoustic pollution in the urban environment. Usually, efforts to minimize the negative effects of noise on humans are limited to formal acoustic solutions at the design stage, but even more often – to the implementation of construction-acoustic solutions at the stage of an already implemented object. In pursuit of the desire to satisfy the buyer and obtain financial benefit, Ukrainian developers neglect project decisions and recommendations on noise and vibration protection issues and as a result, create problems not only for their customers, but also negatively affect the environment in general. The reasons for such a negative impact are: lack of acoustic solutions aimed at reducing noise and vibration from engineering equipment and its incorrect placement, incorrect placement of residential buildings in relation to already existing stationary sources of noise (motorways, railways, airports, existing industrial and production zones). Also, the reasons for the negative impact of noise on the environment include the lack of a global strategy for assessment, forecasting and development of methods of combating noise pollution. This strategy will make it possible to assess the general level of noise pollution in cities, the presence and number of "quiet zones" (territories with no excesses of permissible noise levels), and to create noise maps. The purpose of this work is an example of an acoustic approach, when at the stage of reconstruction of highway M 01, on the Kyiv-Chernihiv section, the necessity of applying acoustic solutions to reduce the noise load on the territory of residential buildings located in close proximity to the road was determined. The result of the work is an assessment of the presence of exceeding permissible noise levels and the development of constructive solutions to minimize acoustic pollution. The use of acoustic screens was chosen as a constructive solution. On-site acoustic measurements were carried out as a tool for assessing the exceedances of permissible noise levels in the residential area. The construction of a calculation model was chosen as a method for predicting the reduction of noise levels. The practical value of this work lies in the preliminary assessment of possible acoustic pollution at the design stage.