The effect of traffic flows on urban soundscape dynamics and how to analyze it

Subjective evaluation of soundscapes considers without a doubt the change in amplitude and frequency of the acoustic signal over time. The urban environment can make these soundscape dynamics become rather complex and interesting. In this paper we investigate how traffic flows, quite often the main source of noise in urban an suburban environments, influence the dynamics of the soundscape at intervals of the order of a few seconds to minutes. A model for dynamical traffic noise prediction is presented. Novel descriptors based on the power spectrum of noise level fluctuations allow us to show, using static maps, how the dynamics evolve in side streets, on squares etc