Empfängerzentrierte Verkehrslärmforschung im BaLSaM-Projekt/Soundscape and physiological reactions in virtual reality Receiver-centered traffic noise research in the BaLSaM project

Traffic noise is one of the most significant categories of noise exposure that can be associated with negative health effects. Due to increasing urbanization, more and more people are affected by traffic noise, whose quality of life is impaired as a result. The BaLSaM project is therefore investigating how a valid simulation of traffic scenarios can be designed and how the simulation can be used to evaluate traffic scenarios in listening tests. The consortium partners are focusing on source-, transmission-, and receiver-effects. The following article describes the methods used to incorporate human perception into the experimental design and how this consideration can help to counteract the negative effects of traffic noise at the urban planning stage. In perception-based evaluation, the soundscape approach or physiological measurements can help to identify characteristics of buildings or traffic flows that are perceived as unpleasant. These approaches are used in listening tests in which various traffic scenarios are evaluated in virtual reality.