Effect of rail traffic noises on the perception of the acoustic environment in office spaces

Abstract

This study conducted a laboratory experiment to investigate the effect of rail traffic noise on the perception of the acoustic environment in office spaces. The study considered two types of experiment stimuli, single noise, and combined noise. The single noise stimuli consisted of silence (SL), air conditioning noise (AC), irrelevant speech (SP), and six types of traffic noise (Tr). Traffic noise included road (R), maglev (Ma), tram (T), conventional train (C), high-speed train (H), and metro (Me). The combined noise stimuli used air conditioning sound and speech as background noise and combined with six types of traffic noise to form the experimental stimuli. Thirty subjects took part in laboratory experiments in which the acoustic environment was rated on two aspects: noise disturbance and acoustic comfort. Under single noises, the results showed that the noise source had a significant negative effect on the evaluation of the acoustic environment. The influence of traffic noises varied with the traffic type, which was lower and higher than that of irrelevant speech and air conditioning noise, respectively. Under combined acoustic conditions, acoustic comfort was affected by the main effects of background noise type, traffic noise type, and traffic noise level. In addition to the main effects, noise disturbance was also influenced by the interaction between traffic noise level and background noise type, and between traffic noise level and traffic noise type. Keywords: rail traffic noise; office space; acoustic environment; acoustic comfort; noise disturbance