This paper is a first step of a research about the analysis of the richness of the existing sounds in  the Plaza Mayor, due to the old and traditional shops and bars under its porticoes together with the  huge daily affluence of people.  In this paper we study the sound preferences of the salesmen and bar tenders at those traditional  shops. These sound preferences include particular sounds, time of occurrence and date of specific  annoying and pleasant sounds perceived at the square and the shops surrounding it. To carry out this  study, several noise level measurements and socio-acoustic surveys were held. We  will  also try to  correlate sound preferences and annoyance with noise levels of specific events existing at  this  particular square

Ausejo Prieto, Miguel

Pavón García, Ignacio

Recuero López, Manuel

Tabacchi, M.

Archivo Digital UPM

Preliminary test to characterize the soundscape of the Plaza Mayor in Madrid

Servicio de Coordinación de Bibliotecas de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

 1 
Preliminary test to characterize the soundscape 
of the Plaza Mayor in Madrid. 
Ausejo, M.
1
; Recuero, M.
2
; Pavón, I.
3
, Tabacchi, M.
4 
Center of Applied Acoustics and non-Destructive Evaluation - CAEND (CSIC-UPM) 
Centro de Tecnologías Físicas Leonardo Torres Quevedo 
C/ Serrano 144, CP. 28006, Madrid, Spain.  
ABSTRACT 
This paper is a first step of a research about the analysis of the richness of the existing sounds in 
the Plaza Mayor, due to the old and traditional shops and bars under its porticoes together with the 
huge daily affluence of people.  
In this paper we study the sound preferences of the salesmen and bar tenders at those traditional 
shops. These sound preferences include particular sounds, time of occurrence and date of specific 
annoying and pleasant sounds perceived at the square and the shops surrounding it. To carry out this 
study, several noise level measurements and socio-acoustic surveys were held. We will also try to 
correlate sound preferences and annoyance with noise levels of specific events existing at this 
particular square. 
 
Keywords: Soundscape, socio-acoustic surveys, questionnaires, noise annoyance. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
The Plaza Mayor is an open public square in the city-centre of Madrid, Spain. The Plaza Mayor 
as we know it today is the work of the architect Juan de Villanueva who was entrusted with its 
reconstruction in 1790 after a spate of big fires. However, the origins of the Plaza go back to 1576. The 
square is rectangular and is surrounded by a 129 meters length by 24 meters wide portico. It is 
dominated by a bronze equestrian sculpture of Felipe II and it has nine entrance gates or entrance 
arches. It has been the scene of multitudinous public events such as markets, bullfights, religious 
processions, theatre plays, football games and, in the old times, even some public executions in the 
16th century; that is why now it is a major tourist attraction, visited by thousands of tourists a year.  
 
 
Figure 1 – Plaza Mayor in Madrid. 
                                                        
1
mausejo@i2a2.upm.es; 
2
manuel.recuero@upm.es; 
3
ignacio.pavon@upm.es; 
4
mtabacchi@i2a2.upm.es 
2 
2. APPROACH TO EVALUATE THE SOUNDSCAPE 
Given that this square has the peculiarity of hosting shops under its porticoes, and the vast 
majority of these establishments are bars, restaurants and coffee bars that are open most of the day, we 
decided to take into account the opinion of the workers who have a great knowledge of what is 
happening in the Plaza Mayor. So, we designed a socio-acoustic questionnaire in order to know their 
opinion about the soundscape in the square.  
First socio-acoustic surveys designed by the Instrumentation and Applied Acoustic Research 
Group (now forming the CAEND) were done more than twelve years ago by sociologists, engineers 
and statisticians. Those surveys have been updated and modified up to now. During these years, 
socio-acoustic surveys have been done in several areas, countries and languages, adapting the 
questionnaires to the environment [1-4]. Apart from that, different population sectors have been 
studied. During all these years the questionnaires have been modified, getting feedback of the results 
obtained in order to design new questions or change those confused ones. These changes have been 
done following international recommendations [5].  
For this study in particular, we chose to redesign the questionnaire and make it shorter, as it 
would be distributed on paper to the workers in their working hours. The main idea was to reduce the 
answering time to 5 minutes approximately. In general terms, all the changes in the questionnaires 
have followed these guidelines [6]:  
• Progressive difficulty in the questionnaire. Easier or clearer questions go at the beginning of 
the questionnaire and difficulty is increasing little by little. This way a bias in the answer is avoided: 
“In community noise reaction surveys of a single noise source, the primary response question is 
usually placed before more extensive sets of questions about the same source to avoid the possibility of 
biasing respondents’ answers by heightening their awareness of the effects of that noise source.”  [7]. 
• Analyse previous results to determine the rejection percentage. This way every valid response 
percentage is set and main questions are placed before. Almost all the questions are closed questions in 
order to have homogeneous results. To determine subjective annoyance, verbal scale of continuous 
gradient (Likert) has been chosen, following international recommendations [6]. Several Ratings were 
measured by means of a verbal rating scale consisting of five categories:  Not at all, Slightly, 
Moderately, Very and Extremely. Other numerical rating scale from 0-to-10 was also used to evaluate 
the soundscape and possible solutions to improve its perception. 
• Generic writing of questions is made in a direct and easy way, but anyway, difficult questions 
must be put into context. 
The goal of all these guidelines is to design a questionnaire attractive to the respondent, 
obtaining a high percentage of valid surveys, avoiding bias in the answers, achieving better qualitative 
and quantitative results.  
The questionnaire is divided in 4 different sections and it is formed by 14 questions. Sections are 
listed as follows: 
• Sociological data: This section is formed by 5 questions, requesting information about age, 
gender, length of service working at the Plaza and other sociological data. 
• Noise annoyance: This section is formed by 1 question, requesting information about 18 noise 
sources (5 categories, verbal rating scale).  
•Perception of the Soundscape: This section is formed by 4 questions, requesting information 
about the general perception of the soundscape, subjective evaluation of several adjectives (0-to-10 
scale) to define the soundscape and dates and frequency of annoying noise events.  
•Solutions to improve the Soundscape: This section is formed by 4 questions, requesting 
information about possible solutions to improve the soundscape at the Plaza (0-to-10 scale) and their 
knowledge and perception of a recent local legislation related to noise.  
This research is to be developed in several stages, therefore this first stage will be used to create 
a final questionnaire improved by the initial results. 
Additionally to the creation and dissemination of the socio-acoustic questionnaire, noise 
measurements have been carried out in order to correlate the subjective answers with the data 
objectively measured, as it is shown in the Figure 2. 
3 
 
Figure 2 – Scheme of the approach chosen to evaluate the Soundscape of the Plaza Mayor. 
3. FIRST TESTS RESULTS 
At this first step, 21 valid questionnaires were collected, covering more than the 77% of the 
shops, bars and restaurants located under the porticoes of the Plaza Mayor. At first glance, it may seem 
that 21 questionnaires are insufficient to obtain reliable results.  However, when analysing the length of 
service working at the Plaza, we confirmed that the workers, salesmen and bar tenders polled, have 
been working there for more than 14 years (mean value). 
3.1 Sociological results 
The analysis by gender is quite balanced: 52% of men and 47% of women. From the sociological 
analysis it can be highlighted that two clear groups are working at the Plaza: 
- Young bar tenders from 20 to 30 years old (38%). 
- People in charge of the restaurants and bars from 40 to 50 years old (29%).  
3.2 Noise annoyance 
Although the questionnaire was design as verbal questions in a five steps scale, the question 
about noise annoyance has been re-grouped as a three steps scale in order to show clearer results, 
following other researches about scales for noise annoyance questions [8]. The results are shown in 
Figure 3. 
3.3 Perception of the Soundscape 
Considering the general soundscape of the Plaza (before a brief definition of “Soundscape”), 
only the 25% of the people answered they felt it was “not at all” or “slightly” annoying.  
Then, based on other international researches [9, 10], several adjectives to describe the 
soundscape were asked in a 0-to-10 numerical scale. The adjectives evaluated were: Relaxing, Noisy, 
Unpleasant, Annoying, Varied, Pleasant, Characteristic, Folk, Exciting, Unique in Madrid, Unique in 
Spain and Unique in the World. No relevant results were found but the majority part of the polled 
people did not found the soundscape as relaxing (3.6 mean value) while they perceived it as noisy (6.7 
mean value). More than the 94% think that the soundscape at the Plaza is more annoying during the 
summer and in the evening and the night-time. 63% of them think the Plaza Mayor is one of the 
noisiest places in Madrid city-centre. 
4 
Figure 3 –Annoyance caused by different noise sources at the Plaza Mayor. 
3.4 Solutions to improve the Soundscape 
Several solutions to improve the soundscape of the Plaza Mayor were evaluated with a 0-to-10 
numerical scale: Legislating peddlers; Prohibiting peddlers; Legislating buskers; Prohibiting 
buskers; Reducing stands/stalls; Prohibiting stands/stalls; Reducing concerts; Prohibiting concerts; 
Reducing events; Prohibiting events; Planting trees/vegetation; Building fountains and waterfalls. 
 In general terms, the people surveyed are against the completely bans (4.2 mean value) but they 
are in favour of legislating the buskers (7.0 mean value) and reducing the number of concerts in the 
Plaza. 
 As three months before carrying out the first test survey, a new local legislation related to 
environmental noise in Madrid was approved [11], we decided to ask the workers about it. This 
legislation dealt with buskers, among other environmental noise issues. The results showed that only 
the 7% knew about the new legislation related to noise. After informing them about the new legislation, 
the 93% think that noise has not changed at all since the legislation came into effect at the Plaza 
Mayor. 
3.5 Noise measurements results 
Several measurements with a B&K 2250 were done in order to evaluate typical events existing 
at the Plaza. A summary of the measurements of these noise events, including regional festival and 
religious processions, is shown in Table1. The richness of the soundscape of this characteristic Plaza is 
also shown in Figure 4. 
4. FIRST CONCLUSIONS 
This first approach to evaluate the soundscape in the Plaza Mayor seems to be valid. Although a 
small amount of reliable questionnaires have been collected, they are very representative of the population 
surveyed (more than 77%). The results of the noise annoyance are very coherent with the proposed 
solutions to improve the Soundscape (see 3.4 subsection), identifying the buskers and the concerts as the 
most annoying events at the Plaza. 
Also the noise measurements reveal the buskers as the noise event with higher LAeq, more precisely 
those playing the accordion and the tambourine.   
In a further step, this research will be used to poll the neighbours in the surroundings of the Plaza and 
comparing those results with new sets of noise measurements.  
 
 
5 
Table 1 – Several noise events measured at the Plaza Mayor. 
M
a
in
 d
e
sc
r
ip
ti
o
n
 
N
o
is
e
 o
f 
th
e 
h
o
rs
e
s’
 h
o
o
v
e
s 
o
n
 t
h
e
 p
a
v
in
g
 s
to
n
e 
h
a
s 
a
 g
re
a
t 
h
ig
h
 
fr
eq
u
en
c
y
 c
o
m
p
o
n
en
t.
 H
o
rs
es
’ 
n
e
ig
h
s.
 R
id
er
s’
 s
h
o
u
ts
 a
n
d
 o
rd
e
rs
. 
S
p
o
n
ta
n
e
o
u
s 
a
p
p
la
u
se
s 
a
n
d
 s
h
o
u
ts
. 
N
o
is
e
 o
f 
th
e
 p
a
ra
d
e
. 
N
o
is
e
 o
f 
th
e
 s
te
p
s 
(s
o
le
s 
a
n
d
 s
h
o
e
s)
 o
n
 t
h
e
 
p
a
v
in
g
 s
to
n
e
. 
S
p
o
n
ta
n
e
o
u
s 
a
p
p
la
u
se
s 
a
n
d
 s
h
o
u
ts
. 
N
o
is
e
 
o
f 
a
 
b
a
n
d
, 
in
c
lu
d
in
g
 
d
ru
m
s 
ro
ll
s 
a
n
d
 
se
v
e
ra
l 
b
a
ss
 
in
st
ru
m
e
n
ts
 
a
s 
tr
u
m
p
e
ts
, 
fl
u
g
e
lh
o
rn
s,
 
tr
o
m
b
o
n
e
s 
a
n
d
 
p
ic
c
o
lo
 
tr
u
m
p
e
ts
. 
T
h
e
 r
e
li
g
io
u
s 
fr
a
te
rn
it
ie
s 
a
n
d
 b
ro
th
e
rh
o
o
d
s 
h
o
ld
 s
ta
tu
e
s 
o
f 
sa
in
ts
 
o
n
 
fl
o
a
ts
. 
T
h
is
 
p
ro
c
e
ss
io
n
 
m
a
k
e
s 
a
 
v
e
ry
 
re
c
o
g
n
iz
a
b
le
 
n
o
is
e
 
k
e
e
p
in
g
 
th
e
 
st
e
p
s 
sy
n
c
h
ro
n
iz
e
d
 
w
it
h
 
th
e
 
d
ru
m
s 
ro
ll
s.
 
S
p
o
n
ta
n
e
o
u
s 
a
p
p
la
u
se
s 
a
n
d
 s
h
o
u
ts
 m
ix
e
d
 w
it
h
 a
n
 a
tm
o
s
p
h
e
re
 o
f 
m
o
u
rn
in
g
 a
n
d
 r
e
sp
e
c
t.
 
Im
p
u
ls
iv
e
 n
o
is
e
. 
H
e
e
l 
st
a
m
p
in
g
 
n
o
is
e
 o
v
e
r 
a
 
w
o
o
d
e
n
 d
e
c
k
 i
s 
q
u
it
e
 
c
h
a
ra
c
te
ri
st
ic
 
a
n
d
 
id
e
n
ti
fi
a
b
le
. 
S
p
a
n
is
h
 
g
u
it
a
r 
a
t 
o
p
e
n
 
sp
a
c
e
s 
is
 u
su
a
ll
y
 p
la
y
e
d
 w
it
h
o
u
t 
a
n
 a
m
p
li
fi
e
r.
 O
n
e
 g
u
it
a
r 
p
la
y
s 
th
e
 b
a
se
 r
h
y
th
m
 w
h
il
e
 t
h
e
 o
th
e
r 
o
n
e
 p
la
y
s 
th
e
 p
lu
c
k
in
g
. 
C
h
a
ra
c
te
ri
st
ic
 s
o
u
n
d
 o
f 
th
e
 a
c
c
o
rd
io
n
 (
b
e
ll
o
w
s 
a
n
d
 k
e
y
s)
 w
it
h
 a
 
v
e
ry
 
id
e
n
ti
fi
a
b
le
 
ti
m
b
re
. 
C
h
a
ra
c
te
ri
st
ic
 
so
u
n
d
 
o
f 
th
e
 
m
e
ta
l 
ji
n
g
le
s 
o
f 
a
 
ta
m
b
o
u
ri
n
e
 
w
it
h
o
u
t 
a
 
d
ru
m
 
h
e
a
d
 
b
y
 
st
ro
k
in
g
 
o
r 
sh
a
k
in
g
 
th
e
 
ji
n
g
le
s.
 
B
o
th
 
in
st
ru
m
e
n
ts
 
h
a
v
e
 
h
ig
h
 
m
id
-h
ig
h
 
fr
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
 
c
o
n
te
n
t.
 
N
o
te
s 
(p
u
re
 
to
n
e
s)
 
a
n
d
 
a
rp
e
g
g
io
 
a
re
 
n
o
ti
c
e
a
b
le
. 
B
u
sk
in
g
 
an
d
 i
m
it
a
ti
n
g
 t
h
e
 n
o
is
e
 o
f 
th
e 
g
o
a
t’
s 
h
o
o
v
e
s 
o
n
 t
h
e 
p
a
v
in
g
 s
to
n
e
. 
L
C
 e
q
 
(d
B
C
) 
7
3
.1
 
7
2
.3
 
8
4
.7
 
7
6
.9
 
7
3
.8
 
7
9
.8
 
7
1
.7
 
L
A
 e
q
 
(d
B
A
) 
7
1
.5
 
6
9
.1
 
7
3
.6
 
7
0
.2
 
7
1
.2
 
7
7
.9
 
7
0
.6
 
D
u
r
a
ti
o
n
 
(m
in
u
te
s)
 
4
 
5
 
8
 
4
 
5
 
1
0
 
5
 
D
is
ta
n
c
e
 t
o
 
S
L
M
 
(m
e
te
r
s)
 
1
5
 
1
5
 
1
5
 
1
5
 
6
 
4
 
6
 
E
v
e
n
t 
H
o
rs
e
 p
a
ra
d
e
 
P
a
ra
d
e
 w
it
h
 t
h
e
 t
ra
d
it
io
n
a
l 
c
o
st
u
m
e
 a
t 
M
a
d
ri
d
's
 S
a
n
 I
si
d
ro
 
M
u
si
c
 B
a
n
d
  
(d
ru
m
s 
a
n
d
 b
a
ss
 i
n
st
ru
m
e
n
ts
) 
R
e
li
g
io
u
s 
p
ro
c
e
ss
io
n
 
H
e
e
l 
st
a
m
p
in
g
 a
n
d
 S
p
a
n
is
h
 
g
u
it
a
rs
 (
fl
a
m
e
n
c
o
) 
A
c
c
o
rd
io
n
 a
n
d
 t
a
m
b
o
u
ri
n
e
 
 
(b
u
sk
e
rs
) 
S
tr
e
e
t 
p
e
rf
o
rm
a
n
c
e
 
 
6 
 
 
 
Figure 4 –Several pictures showing the richness of the soundscape in the Plaza Mayor. 
 
REFERENCES 
[1]  J. Sommerhoff, M. Recuero, E. Suárez. Community noise survey of the city of Valdivia, Chile.  
Applied Acoustics 65 (7), pp. 643-656 (2004). 
[2]  M. Ausejo, M. Recuero. Subjective study of the noise in several hospitals in the Autonomous City of 
Buenos Aires. The 13th International Congress on Sound and Vibration (13ICSV). Viena, Austria. 
2006. 
[3]  M. Ausejo, M. Recuero. Subjective study of the noise in several schools in the Autonomous City of 
Buenos Aires. 33rd International Acoustic Conference. EAA Symposium. Strbske Pleso, Eslovaquia. 
2006. 
[4]  M. Ausejo, M. Recuero, M. C. Morillo. Research on subjective noise in Pozuelo de Alarcón. The16th 
International Congress on Sound and Vibration (16ICSV). Krakow, Poland. 2009. 
[5]  ISO/TS 15666:2003 Acoustics – Assessment of noise annoyance by means of social and 
socio-acoustic surveys. Group Assessment of Exposure to Noise (WG-AEN), 2003. 
[6]  A. M. González, F. Fernández. Diseño de encuesta sobre las metodologías y la actividad científica de 
los equipos de investigación. Metodología de las encuestas, Vol. 6, Núm. 2, 2004, 133-145. 
[7]  J. M. Fields et al. Standardized general-purpose noise reaction questions for community noise 
surveys: research and recommendation. Journal of Sound and Vibration (2001), 242 (4), 641-679. 
[8]  R. Klæboeh. Annoyance – An environscape perspective. EEA Euroregio, Ljubljana, September 2010. 
[9]  M. Raimbault. Qualitative Judgements of urban soundscapes: Questionning questionnaires and 
semantic scales. Acta Acustica united with Acustica Vol. 92 (2006) 929-937. 
[10] D. Dubois, C. Guastavino, M. Raimbault. A cognitive approach to urban soundscape: using verbal 
data to access everyday life auditory categories. Acta Acustica united with Acustica Vol. 92 (2006) 
865-874. 
[11] Boletín Oficial de la Comunidad de Madrid. B.O.C.M. Núm. 61. Ordenanza de protección contra la 
contaminación acústica y térmica. 14/03/2011. 


http://oa.upm.es/13002/1/INVE_MEM_2011_108714.pdf

Preliminary test to characterize the soundscape of the Plaza Mayor in Madrid

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Archivo Digital UPM

Servicio de Coordinación de Bibliotecas de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid