Evaluation of Urban Traffic Noise Pollution – A Case Study of Tirupur City

Noise is one of the most important pollution in the metropolitan and urban areas, the recognition of road traffic noise as one of the main sources of environmental pollution is the need of the hour.In urban areas people commute regularly for performing their day to day activities which leads to more and more travel using automobiles which are one of the chief agent of noise pollution.Population growth, development of the mega cities and their impacts on urban traffic are the most important problems that is harrying the people in cities. Traffic noise from roadways and highways creates problems for surrounding area, especially when there are high traffic volume and high speeds. Vehicular traffic noise problem is contributed by various kinds of vehicles like heavy, medium truck / buses, automobiles and two wheelers. In this paper a study of traffic noise in Tirupur city has been done in the busy areas of the city which have high traffic flow in peak hours, results obtained in the study shows that the whole city is affected heavily by noise pollution and in almost 90% of the area prevailing noise level is more than the ambient noise level. It has been found that in many areas the noise level prevailing averages around 85 db at 90% of the busy points of the city. Most of the noise is generated only due to heave movement of vehicles, Tirupur being a small and congested town, creates chronic issues related to noise pollution. This high level attributed to vehicular traffic specially auto rickshaw with ineffective silencers (without filters) and frequent use of the pressure horns by buses, wagons and trucks etc. The city is rapidly developing, more and more vehicles are being used regularly which adds thrust on noise level in the city which in turn will create many health issues. Since the traffic noise is increasing more in this city day by day so this has to be analyzed and controlled so that no health hazards pose. Keywords: Noise pollution, traffic volume, noise monitoring, noise modeling, health hazards, environmental effects, vehicular traffic.