Critical assessment of day time traffic noise level at curbside open-air microenvironment of Kolkata City, India

Background: the objective of the research work is to assess day time traffic noise level at curbside open-airmicroenvironment of kolkata city, india under heterogeneous environmental conditions.results: prevailing traffic noise level in terms of a-weighted equivalent noise level (leq) at the microenvironmentwas in excess of 12.6 ± 2.1 db(a) from the day time standard of 65 db(a) for commercial area recommended by thecentral pollution control board (cpcb) of india. noise climate and traffic noise index of the microenvironmentwere accounted for 13 ± 1.8 db(a) and 88.8 ± 6.1 db(a) respectively. a correlation analysis explored that prevailingtraffic noise level of the microenvironment had weak negative (?0.21; p < 0.01) and very weak positive (0.19; p < 0.01)correlation with air temperature and relative humidity. a varimax rotated principal component analysis explored thatmotorized traffic volume had moderate positive loading with background noise component (l90, l95, l99) andprevailing traffic noise level had very strong positive loading with peak noise component (l1, l5, l10). background andpeak noise component cumulatively explained 80.98 % of variance in the data set.conclusions: traffic noise level at curbside open-air microenvironment of kolkata city was higher than the standardrecommended by cpcb of india. it was highly annoying also. air temperature and relative humidity had little influenceand the peak noise component had the most significant influence on the prevailing traffic noise level at curbsideopen-air microenvironment. therefore, traffic noise level at the microenvironment of the city can be reduced withcareful honking and driving.