From strategic noise maps to receiver-centric noise exposure sensitivity mapping

Road traffic is a major source of environmental noise pollution in urban areas. While strategic noise maps are widely used to identify the critical areas and propose mitigation plans, more specific tools are needed to evaluate the impact from traffic noise such as overall population exposure or anticipated impact from specific vehicles in varying spatiotemporal traffic conditions. The present contribution proposes a receiver-centric mapping approach, introducing "noise exposure sensitivity maps", meant to assess the potential noise exposure impact from a specific vehicle in a given network, quantifying the associated exceedance over the prevailing background noise, under varying spatiotemporal traffic conditions. The resulting maps are thus focussed on a representation of the receiver exposure as opposed to considering the noise emission and propagation alone. The complete methodology, its underlying assumptions, and possible applications such as route optimisation are demonstrated on realistic scenarios.