Urban environment soundscape evaluation: Milan case study of noise events perceptions by citizens

As one of the main urban environmental pollutants, noise is becoming a real public health concern due to its impact on citizen's well-being. Real-operation noise monitoring can help policy makers in improving the quality of urban environments. To this end, Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks (WASNs) have been deployed in crowded city centers in both America and Europe. The main application of WASNs is to measure the noise levels from road traffic. Yet, other types of sounds can be found in urban areas, which may also affect citizen's health. Here, we aim to evaluate the citizen's perception of different urban sounds considering their psychoacoustic characteristics, namely loudness, sharpness, roughness, fluctuation strength and tonality. To this end, we have conducted an on-line and off-site listening test using a urban acoustic event dataset collected by WASNs in Milan. The dataset includes seven common urban noises such as sirens, horns, people talking, truck, works, among others. Participants have been asked to rate the level of agreement with adjectives such as loud, shrilling, disturbing, sharp or pleasant. The test responses from one hundred volunteers allow us to gather valuable information about people's perceptions of common urban noises.