Assessing the indoor thermal comfort of a toll station

The importance of a good indoor environment for peoples' health and wellbeing is nowadays clearly established. Besides enhancing the wellbeing of building occupants and helping decrease the occurrence of building related illness, a good indoor environment can also lead to a decrease in worker complaints and absenteeism. This paper presents the results of a three-month monitoring campaign where the thermal comfort of a toll station was evaluated, including the main room and the cabins. The physical parameters required for the assessment of both global and local thermal comfort were measured and the results were compared with the thermal perception of the occupants, which was collected through questionnaires. The indoor environmental quality in the main room was better than in the cabins and a mismatch between the PMV index and the occupants thermal sensation was identified.