Analysis and appraisal of urban road traffic noise of the City of Cuttack,India

The road traffic noise environment in the cuttack city,commercial and judicial capital of the indian state,odisha,has been appraised in the present study. noise pollution was analysed in 17 different squares (road sections) during four different specified times to assess the level of noise pollution of the city. noise descriptors such as l10,l50,l 90,leq,tni (traffic noise index),npl (noise pollution level),nc (noise climate),q (traffic volume) and p (truck-traffic mix ratio) were analysed to reveal the extent of noise pollution due to heavy traffic in this city. a systematic comparison between tni and leq noise levels for all selected locations reveal that the tni values are much more than respective leq levels. this simply demonstrates that although the noise levels during any period of the day are generally constant but the presence of single event noise is sufficient to affect the values of l 10,l50,l90,leq and consequently the tni. analysis of variance (f-test) is also computed for investigated squares to infer the level of significance. even the minimum npl and tni values are more than 100 db. noise levels at all the road sections exceeded the standard ambient noise levels prescribed by who (70 db).