Meng, Q. and Kang, J. (2015) The influence of crowd density on the sound environment of commercial pedestrian streets. Science of the Total Environment, 511. 249 - 258. ISSN 0048-9697
Abstract
Commercial pedestrian streets are very common in China and Europe, with many situated in historic or cultural centres. The environments of these streets are important, including their sound environments. The objective of this study is to explore the relationships between the crowd density and the sound environments of commercial pedestrian streets. On-site measurements were performed at the case study site in Harbin, China, and a questionnaire was administered. The sound pressure measurements showed that the crowd density has an insignificant effect on sound pressure below 0.05 persons/m2, whereas when the crowd density is greater than 0.05 persons/m2, the sound pressure increases with crowd density. The sound sources were analysed, showing that several typical sound sources, such as traffic noise, can be masked by the sounds resulting from dense crowds. The acoustic analysis showed that crowd densities outside the range of 0.10 to 0.25 persons/m2 exhibited lower acoustic comfort evaluation scores. In terms of audiovisual characteristics, the subjective loudness increases with greater crowd density, while the acoustic comfort decreases. The results for an indoor underground shopping street are also presented for comparison.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014 Elsevier. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Science of The Total Environment. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Crowd density; Commercial pedestrian street; Subjective loudness; Acoustic comfort; Audiovisual interaction |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Architecture (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 07 Oct 2015 16:01 |
Last Modified: | 03 Nov 2017 21:51 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.12.060 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.12.060 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:86029 |