Approach to acoustic mapping through continuous mobile monitoring

For the production of representative noise maps, a large amount of information is necessary, which includes, among others, on-site measurements of environmental noise. Thus, for noise maps based on measurements, mobile sampling emerges as a possible solution for the enhancement of data acquisition. The present research proposes a complete framework to perform mobile sampling. Since the normative requires long-term values to be presented in a noise map, a sampling strategy based on temporal stratification, which reduces the required sampled days to estimate the annual equivalent noise level, is presented. Furthermore, to compute long-term values for the night period, since they are usually affected by noise sources different to traffic, specifically leisure noise, a complementary temporal and spatial stratification is also presented. Then, the statistical requirements to perform mobile noise measurements using bicycles is evaluated. The vehicles and bicycles journeys are reproduced based on micro-traffic simulation and then coupled with an acoustic modeling. The estimation error of LAeq for the mobile sampling is compared to reference static samples, in terms of the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and is computed for different aggregation radius of mobile receivers, and as a function of the number of passes-by and to the distance to its nearest cross street. To perform the mobile sampling on a real scenario, a low-cost noise monitoring device with the aim of performing georeferenced noise sampling, is developed. The accuracy tests suggest that it is able to acquire noise levels with an equivalent accuracy as a Class 2 sound level meter. Finally, to validate the results obtained through the modeling framework, a noise monitoring device is mounted on a bicycle and on-site mobile measurements are performed simultaneously to reference static ones. The same scenario is again recreated based on micro-simulation of traffic complemented with acoustic modeling. Then, for the simulated framework and the on-site measurements, the RMSE of the estimation of LAeq for different aggregation radius of mobile samples is compared to the reference static ones. It is confirmed that mobile sampling is a solution to improve noise data acquisition, which reduces the resources required to produce a noise map without sacrificing the accuracy and representativeness.Para la producción de mapas de ruido representativos, una gran cantidad de información es necesaria, que incluye, entre otras, mediciones de ruido ambiental en sitio. Por lo tanto, para los mapas de ruido basados en mediciones, el muestreo móvil surge como una posible solución para mejorar la adquisición de datos. La presente investigación propone un marco completo para realizar el muestreo móvil. Dado que la normativa requiere de valores de largo plazo para realizar un mapa de ruido, se propone una estrategia de muestreo basada en estratificación temporal que reduce los días de muestreo necesarios para estimar el nivel de ruido equivalente anual. Además, para calcular los valores a largo plazo para el período nocturno, ya que generalmente se ve afectado por fuentes de ruido distintas al tráfico, específicamente de ruido de ocio, se presenta una estratificación temporal y espacial complementaria. Por otra parte, se evalúan los requisitos estadísticos para realizar mediciones de ruido móviles utilizando bicicletas. Los trayectos de los vehículos y las bicicletas se reproducen en base a una microsimulación de tráfico para después combinarse con modelado acústico. El error de estimación del indicador LAeq calculado con el muestreo móvil se compara, en términos del error cuadrático medio (RMSE), con muestras de referencia obtenidas de forma estática para diferentes radios de agregación de receptores móviles, y también en función del número de pases y de la distancia al cruce de calles más cercano. Para realizar el muestreo móvil en un escenario real, se desarrolla un dispositivo de monitoreo de ruido de bajo costo con el objetivo de realizar un muestreo de ruido georreferenciado. Las pruebas de precisión muestran que es capaz de adquirir niveles de ruido con una precisión equivalente a un sonómetro de Clase 2. Finalmente, para validar los resultados obtenidos a través de las simulaciones, se equipa una bicicleta con el dispositivo de monitoreo y se realizan mediciones móviles en sitio al mismo tiempo que mediciones estáticas de referencia. El mismo escenario se recrea basándose nuevamente en una microsimulación de tráfico complementada con modelado acústico. Después, para los niveles de ruido simulados y las mediciones en sitio, el RMSE de la estimación del indicador LAeq para distintos radios de agregación de muestras móviles se compara con el muestreo estático de referencia. Con ello, se confirma que el muestreo móvil es una solución para mejorar la adquisición de datos de ruido, lo que reduce los recursos necesarios para producir un mapa de ruido sin sacrificar la precisión y la representatividad.Postprint (published version

Advances on Smart Cities and Smart Buildings

Modern cities are facing the challenge of combining competitiveness at the global city scale and sustainable urban development to become smart cities. A smart city is a high-tech, intensive and advanced city that connects people, information, and city elements using new technologies in order to create a sustainable, greener city; competitive and innovative commerce; and an increased quality of life. This Special Issue collects the recent advancements in smart cities and covers different topics and aspects

Examining Healthy Community Design Characteristics and Its Influence on Physical Health

Current trends in obesity rates associated with the community layout constitutes research towards understanding the interaction between the two in order to improve the public\u27s physical health. Successes in healthy community planning studies for the public can be harnessed and implemented within the microcosm of military bases to yield similar results. Four factors were recognized through an in-depth academic literature review that showed positive influence on physical health and physical activity. They are access to green space, highly connected pedestrian and bicycle networks, access to public transportation, and integrated mixed land use. The four healthy planning strategies formed the necessary background to analyze the Healthy Base Initiative survey. A priori data from the Air Force Civil Engineer Center was examined for reliability, validity, and consistency. The results uncovered the fact that the exploratory nature of the Healthy Base Initiative survey was too wide-ranged in its questions leading to an inconclusive and undesirable outcome. The new DoD Healthy Activity Public Planning Investigative survey addresses the issues of the Healthy Base Initiative survey by reducing the most applicable healthy planning factors to the four strategies highlighted from the literature review. The novel survey combines questions pertaining to existing healthy base infrastructure with a validated World Health Organization Global Physical Activity Questionnaire to examine the causal relationship between physical health and environment. Altogether, the significance of this research presents four concise healthy planning strategies for the Air Force Civil Engineer Center and the Department of Defense, as well as a recommendation for a way forward on understanding how to improve base occupant\u27s physical health through healthy community planning

Impacts of roadway condition, traffic and manmade features on road safety

NH-55 is one of the major connectivity from Cuttack to Sambalpur which caters to the need of transportation of light goods to heavy goods and passengers. Study area was undertaken on road NH-55 from Angul to Bhushan steel plant with stretch Km 159/0 toKm157/0 in Odisha state. The coal based power plants and steel industries have been set up since 2006. The study Stretch is a major connectivity to no of heavy industries like Nalco, Bhushan steel, Jindal steel, Gmr, Essar steel, Adani power, Monnet and many more small scale industries based on Talcher coal mines. The no of accidents is rising up every year due to increasing vehicles population. The location in a roadway where the traffic accident often occurs is called a black spot. The accident data is analyzed using accident frequency and severity index method. The safety deficiencies were detected to minimize accidents and save the road users. The deficiencies along with the measures for further improvement have been presented in this thesis

Approach to acoustic mapping through continuous mobile monitoring

For the production of representative noise maps, a large amount of information is necessary, which includes, among others, on-site measurements of environmental noise. Thus, for noise maps based on measurements, mobile sampling emerges as a possible solution for the enhancement of data acquisition. The present research proposes a complete framework to perform mobile sampling. Since the normative requires long-term values to be presented in a noise map, a sampling strategy based on temporal stratification, which reduces the required sampled days to estimate the annual equivalent noise level, is presented. Furthermore, to compute long-term values for the night period, since they are usually affected by noise sources different to traffic, specifically leisure noise, a complementary temporal and spatial stratification is also presented. Then, the statistical requirements to perform mobile noise measurements using bicycles is evaluated. The vehicles and bicycles journeys are reproduced based on micro-traffic simulation and then coupled with an acoustic modeling. The estimation error of LAeq for the mobile sampling is compared to reference static samples, in terms of the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and is computed for different aggregation radius of mobile receivers, and as a function of the number of passes-by and to the distance to its nearest cross street. To perform the mobile sampling on a real scenario, a low-cost noise monitoring device with the aim of performing georeferenced noise sampling, is developed. The accuracy tests suggest that it is able to acquire noise levels with an equivalent accuracy as a Class 2 sound level meter. Finally, to validate the results obtained through the modeling framework, a noise monitoring device is mounted on a bicycle and on-site mobile measurements are performed simultaneously to reference static ones. The same scenario is again recreated based on micro-simulation of traffic complemented with acoustic modeling. Then, for the simulated framework and the on-site measurements, the RMSE of the estimation of LAeq for different aggregation radius of mobile samples is compared to the reference static ones. It is confirmed that mobile sampling is a solution to improve noise data acquisition, which reduces the resources required to produce a noise map without sacrificing the accuracy and representativeness.Para la producción de mapas de ruido representativos, una gran cantidad de información es necesaria, que incluye, entre otras, mediciones de ruido ambiental en sitio. Por lo tanto, para los mapas de ruido basados en mediciones, el muestreo móvil surge como una posible solución para mejorar la adquisición de datos. La presente investigación propone un marco completo para realizar el muestreo móvil. Dado que la normativa requiere de valores de largo plazo para realizar un mapa de ruido, se propone una estrategia de muestreo basada en estratificación temporal que reduce los días de muestreo necesarios para estimar el nivel de ruido equivalente anual. Además, para calcular los valores a largo plazo para el período nocturno, ya que generalmente se ve afectado por fuentes de ruido distintas al tráfico, específicamente de ruido de ocio, se presenta una estratificación temporal y espacial complementaria. Por otra parte, se evalúan los requisitos estadísticos para realizar mediciones de ruido móviles utilizando bicicletas. Los trayectos de los vehículos y las bicicletas se reproducen en base a una microsimulación de tráfico para después combinarse con modelado acústico. El error de estimación del indicador LAeq calculado con el muestreo móvil se compara, en términos del error cuadrático medio (RMSE), con muestras de referencia obtenidas de forma estática para diferentes radios de agregación de receptores móviles, y también en función del número de pases y de la distancia al cruce de calles más cercano. Para realizar el muestreo móvil en un escenario real, se desarrolla un dispositivo de monitoreo de ruido de bajo costo con el objetivo de realizar un muestreo de ruido georreferenciado. Las pruebas de precisión muestran que es capaz de adquirir niveles de ruido con una precisión equivalente a un sonómetro de Clase 2. Finalmente, para validar los resultados obtenidos a través de las simulaciones, se equipa una bicicleta con el dispositivo de monitoreo y se realizan mediciones móviles en sitio al mismo tiempo que mediciones estáticas de referencia. El mismo escenario se recrea basándose nuevamente en una microsimulación de tráfico complementada con modelado acústico. Después, para los niveles de ruido simulados y las mediciones en sitio, el RMSE de la estimación del indicador LAeq para distintos radios de agregación de muestras móviles se compara con el muestreo estático de referencia. Con ello, se confirma que el muestreo móvil es una solución para mejorar la adquisición de datos de ruido, lo que reduce los recursos necesarios para producir un mapa de ruido sin sacrificar la precisión y la representatividad

Technical, Economic and Environmental Evaluation of Warm Mix Asphalt and Coloured Asphalt for Usage in Canada

Transportation services play an important role in the Canadian economy, and social activities as well as Canada's competitiveness in the global economy. As one of the most valuable systems of transportation in Canada, 90 percent of all goods and services are transported via trucks over an extensive land area characterized by diverse landscapes and harsh environments. These unique characteristics of Canada, coupled with other challenges including an aging road network and highway infrastructure, limited finances, and environmental considerations provide great incentive to decision makers at federal, provincial/territorial, and municipal government levels to consider new and innovative ways to fund road transportation infrastructure. In an effort to evaluate two innovative pavement technologies applicable in both urban and rural areas, this research project is focused on (1) Coloured Hot Mix Asphalt (CHMA) and (2) Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA). The intent of the CHMA research study was to characterize the structural, functional, and environmental characteristics of the coloured asphalt design by analyzing laboratory and field performance. This research was focussed on providing innovative and sustainable solutions, which can be effectively used in Canada as means of ensuring durability and high performance throughout the material’s life cycle. To achieve the research objectives, materials collected during paving operations and materials produced under controlled laboratory conditions were systematically evaluated at CPATT to capture the impact of colouring pigment on the mixture’s strength. Results provided in this thesis suggest that pigmentation can adversely affect the performance and proper steps have to been taken to mitigate such effect: including using softer binder and lower Dust Proportion (DP) in the mixture. The state-of-the-art AASHTOWare Mechanistic-Empirical (M-E) Software was employed to complete the most accurate level of analysis, referred to as “Level 1”. ME analysis outputs were then used to develop prediction models for a design life of 50 years that can be used to establish Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA). Based on LCCA analysis Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lane structure surfaced with CHMA was found to be significantly more expensive to construct and maintain than a similar structure surfaced with HMA located in York Region. However, this cost difference is expected to decrease in near future as contractors are becoming more familiar with the mixture’s design and production techniques. This research further evaluated the performance of WMA technology by using different Performance-Graded Asphalt Cement (PGAC) sources modified with three types of WMA additives (Evotherm 3G, Rediset LQ, and SonneWarmix) in combination with two types of aggregate of pink granite and trap rock diabase. Results obtained in this comprehensive research were statistically analyzed to verify the significance of the results. All information collected from a combination of qualitative and quantitative laboratory test methods and M-E long-term prediction were then ranked in ascending order for each combination of aggregate, additive and binder type. This ranking suggests that certain warm mix technologies such as Evotherm 3G and Rediset LQ can be effectively used to lower the asphalt mixture production and construction temperatures, as well as improving the performance (i.e. moisture susceptibility) in both laboratory and field

Smart Bike Aftermarket System (SBAMS)

The Smart Bike Aftermarket System will be a set of connected modules, which, when installed on a standard bicycle, will allow it to mimic some of the safety and quality-of-life functionalities of an E-bike. The most notable of these safety features is an ability to detect vehicles approaching from behind and alert the user of potential collisions. The system will also implement lighting (Headlights, taillights, and turn signals), and a coupled application so a user can view more advanced information about their cycling. The primary advantage of this system over a standard E-bike is that it will have a lower bar to entry, as it will not require the purchase of a new bicycle. This will improve the ability of users with limited resources to keep themselves safe while cycling, saving lives and avoiding injuries

Equitable Complete Streets: Data and Methods for Optimal Design Implementation

69A43551747123The Complete Streets concept references roads designed to accommodate: (1) diverse modes, including walking, cycling, public transit, and automobile; (2) different users, e.g. affluent and low-income individuals, people with disabilities, and senior citizens; (3) and a mix of land uses such as office, retail, businesses, and residential to ensure streets are safe, balanced and inclusively support diverse economic, cultural and environmental uses. Today most of our streets are poorly designed and do not offer safe places to walk, bike, or take public transportation. Such streets are particularly dangerous for disadvantaged segments of the population, including people of color, older adults, children, and those living in low-income communities. Successful Complete Streets projects prioritize multi-modal transport systems and have been demonstrated to be effective in fostering more livable communities, increasing equity and improving public health. This project analyzes different components of Complete Streets design and use with the goal of creating fast, low-cost, and high impact (transportation) changes in our communities. In recent years, \u201ccomplete streets\u201d has been an emerging concept in North American transportation planning and design. To be considered a \u201ccomplete street\u201d, a road should be designed to be safe for users of all traffic modes. This report presents three studies: safety evaluation on the complete streets by simulating different modes, quantify the benefits of complete streets in terms of equity and improved access across different segments of the population (especially low income) and road space allocation on the complete streets