Permanent and Semi-Permanent Road Traffic Noise Monitoring in the City of Nis (Serbia)

Abstract

This paper deals with the procedure of long-term road traffic noise monitoring in urban areas. For the purpose of strategic noise mapping and assessment of harmful effects of environmental noise it is necessary to determine the annual value of noise indicators, mainly by long-term measurements, which can be realized by permanent and semi-permanent noise monitoring. The permanent noise monitoring includes noise measurements of 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, while the semi-permanent monitoring typically ranges from a few days up to several weeks or months. The research described in this paper was conducted with the aim to determine adequate duration of semi-permanent monitoring of road traffic noise in the city of Nis to enable cost-effective monitoring of road traffic noise and determination of noise indicators at multiple locations with only a few noise monitoring stations. Based on the presented sets of measurement results at three locations, it can be concluded that road traffic noise monitoring with a duration of one month yields very acceptable and repeatable values for road traffic noise assessment for the three observed locations. Likewise, the semi-permanent road traffic noise monitoring with a duration of one week or only during workdays yields very usable values for the determination of annual value of noise indicators, which can be used for road traffic noise survey.