Quiet route planning for pedestrians in traffic noise polluted environments

http://k1z.blog.uni-heidelberg.de/2020/07/15/quiet-route-planning-for-pedestrians-in-traffic-noise-polluted-environments/

by ericdanielski • 6 years ago

239 132 6 years ago

k1z.blog.uni-heidelberg.de

nn3• 6 years ago

Very cool. I would totally use that if it was available in an easy app for my city. Hopefully that research migrates quickly to the industry.

ahelwer2• 6 years ago

With coronavirus lockdown I've taken to going on long strolls while listening to audiobooks. Since I don't like wearing noise-canceling headphones due to situational awareness concerns (opting for a cheap pair of Koss PortaPros), it has struck me just how loud a regular car is as it drives by at low speed. I have to crank up the volume above a safe level to continue listening to my book as one drives by. It makes me yearn for an urban future where personal car ownership is a distant memory.

And gas-powered leafblowers. Oh man, those are the worst. DC was right to ban them.

clairity2• 6 years ago

"And gas-powered leafblowers. Oh man, those are the worst. DC was right to ban them."

agreed, but mostly for the atrocious pollution those things put out. here in LA, they're also banned but still widely used. i can smell them, let alone hear them, through my window nearly a hundred feet away.

with electric vehicles still rising, i can't wait for the day we can relegate most (all?) gas-powered machines to well-segregated industrial areas and thereby reduce both noise and air pollution drastically in our living environments.

stefan_• 6 years ago

Since we are at it, can we ban gasoline scooters? They feature the same leafblower engines, and I have the impression they have been "grandfathered" in emissions legislation so often that the entire population must have been replaced three times over.

China has it right, those prehistoric things have no place anymore.

drivers99• 6 years ago

Exact same situation for me with regard to noise and audiobooks/podcasts. Another one is looking into cars' bright headlights at night. I started finding ways to go along residential streets instead of arterial ones. There is actually a wall along the sides of the arterial road making the difference even greater (extra noise on the arterial, less on the residential one street away). They have a big sidewalk on the arterial but they also have sprinklers overspraying on them as well. So, one more benefit to stay off them.

Typical example: DTC Blvd (supposedly nice but loud and you get sprayed with sprinklers) https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6123322,-104.8861333,3a,75y,...

1 block over, doesn't even have sidewalks, but is much nicer to walk through. There are trails which let you get through to the next area. https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6125315,-104.8823492,3a,75y,...

(There are also multi-use paths nearby as well but they are crowded lately under the circumstances. The parks are closed after dusk.)

masklinn2• 6 years ago

Since I don't like wearing noise-canceling headphones due to situational awareness concerns

That's kinda why I was interested in noise-cancelling cans with a "transparency" mode, able to feed back into the 'cans as needed/desired.

Haven't had the occasion to even try one though.

idreyn2• 6 years ago

The "ambient sound" mode on my Sony WH-1000XM2 headphones works very well for this. I find it useful for video calls; without the feedback of hearing my own voice I tend towards shouting.

virgil_disgr4ce• 6 years ago

I use the pass-through mode of my Jabra Elites whenever I'm in a store or need to interact with people or otherwise hear / be aware. I feel sort of bad keeping the earphones in, because I don't want people to think I'm being an asshole, but I can generally hear them just fine.

the_pwner2244• 6 years ago

I have Bose NC700, the button on the headphones switches between noise cancelling level 10/5/0. 10 is max and makes people nearly impossible to hear if you have any audio playing; 5 is a great balance between cancelling background noises but letting through voices and other sounds; 0 is full transparency mode and actually amplifies the sound a bit.

In any case, ANC is best at cancelling out constant background sound, and is less effective at short bursts of noise (crashing sound, another commenter mentioned crinkling candy wrappers, etc.). At home with level 10 I can't hear anyone knocking at the door, but construction noises still get through if you don't have any audio playing. Level 5 resolves the door issue but makes the construction worse :(

The voice feedback is a different feature which activates when the mic is active, so you can hear yourself. Not sure how that compares to what the 1000XM2 does.

spaetzleesser• 6 years ago

Leaf blowers suck. Loud and smelly. I have also heard that they are destroying the habitat of insects which will have long term consequences for our ecosystem.

saagarjha2• 6 years ago

When going on walks, I like to note down spots where I can't hear any man-made noise. Even after lockdown anywhere within ~1000 feet of I-280 doesn't qualify, even from the backside of De Anza's knoll where you can't see it anymore and there's nothing else that could possibly make noise. But there is a stretch of west Stevens Creek Road, away from overhead power lines, that is now mostly quiet for minutes at a time whereas before you'd only get a couple seconds before a car would turn into one of the gated communities or a truck would go past on its way to the Permanente plant. It's not like there was a steady stream of these going past–no, the road is straight so you'd hear them from hundreds of feet away. Not even electric cars solve the issue that a vehicle that's moving past a crawl…is still kind of loud.

legerdemain• 6 years ago

It's basically impossible to find areas of quiet on the peninsula, if you want genuine quiet. Even the parks along Skyline have a consistent level of noise from planes overhead.

Swizec2• 6 years ago

I have to crank up the volume above a safe level to continue listening to my book as one drives by

This is why I use noise cancelling headphones when running. The lower volume means I have more situational awareness. My hearing isn’t slamming against the redline from high music/book volume so my brain doesn’t have to keep filtering. When something happens it’s more likely to stand out and I’ll hear it.

Plus my ears don’t hurt after a 2 hour run. Similar effect as earplugs on a motorcycle.

ahelwer2• 6 years ago

Interested in your experience here. Do you feel safe when, for example, crossing the street?

cheschire• 6 years ago

I picked up some bone conducting headphones. Not the best audio quality but I got them for bike riding. They also function perfectly on airplanes in conjunction with pressure equalizing ear plugs.

Wingman4l72• 6 years ago

I have a non-name-brand pair. Audio quality is only acceptable for podcasts or audiobooks. They're excellent for in-house use (where you'd like to have your attention be readily available by others). Unfortunately they are worse than other options outside; their lack of passive noise-blocking makes them easily overwhelmed by environmental noises.

If you need high situational awareness outdoors, the best option I've found is simple: using a single wireless earbud. This is not really acceptable for music, unfortunately, but is a good compromise solution for spoken word content.

scythe• 6 years ago

It makes me yearn for an urban future where personal car ownership is a distant memory.

You won't have to wait that long -- EVs reduce noise substantially and mass adoption is probably one to three decades away depending on the city

leetcrew2• 6 years ago

maybe true to an extent, but most modern ICE vehicles have pretty quiet exhausts. above parking lot speeds, you are mostly hearing noise from the tires and displacement of air.

aitchnyu• 6 years ago

Seems noise levels wont improve much with today's tires:

Traffic noise is created by vehicle exhaust systems, engines, and by contact of tires with the road during travel. Of these, tire contact with the road accounts for 75 to 90 percent of the overall traffic noise.

benrbray2• 6 years ago

No need to wait -- a short stay in Tokyo was enough to convince me that daily life can be much better right now if I leave the United States. I was scheduled to move permanently to Japan in May, but unfortunately the travel ban delayed my move.

As a young person with few attachments, it was an easy decision to leave, especially given all that has happened the last few months.

One to three decades is 1/8 to 1/2 of my life, if I'm lucky not to get hit by a car before then. Until the United States can catch up to the rest of the developed world, I'll be voting with my residence.

globular-toast2• 6 years ago

When driven normally (or considerately) the engine noise of a petrol car is barely perceptible above the noise of the tyres on the road. EVs are heavier than petrol cars so will produce even more road noise. Also, in many places EVs will be required to produce an artificial sound in addition to the road noise.

The thing with sound is our perceptible dynamic range is huge. If you live in a city you probably don't think regular car noise is that bad. That's because your noise floor is really, really high. When you're out in the countryside with no wind, a single car is the loudest thing for miles around.

Spooky232• 6 years ago

I work on my front patio, and I wish I had run a dB meter thoroughout my Covid experience. I live in the city and it was silent in early May — at one point I observed no cars on the nearby avenue for 20 minutes.

As for leaf blowers, if you think gas is bad, try for the extra capacity battery powered ones with higher RPM. Sounds like someone screaming.

Nasrudith• 6 years ago

People complained more about cars being quiet and they assume fairly hard of hearing and poor vision as a baseline essentially. I personally consider it something that sucks and would love them quieter while considering their current mandated state a justifiable lesser evil.

Deliberately loudened motorcycles and sportcars because fools think louder is faster can go straight to hell though.

andrepd• 6 years ago

Deliberately loudened motorcycles and sportcars because fools think louder is faster can go straight to hell though.

I don't get it. Why can a shithead on a motorcycle get away with bothering hundreds of people by revving hard in the street? Why do they get away with higher noise ceilings than cars?

nickjj• 6 years ago

I personally consider it something that sucks and would love them quieter while considering their current mandated state a justifiable lesser evil.

I've been walking in suburban areas for 2-5 miles a day for the last 7 years or so.

I really dislike super loud cars but I wouldn't want silent cars either. I typically don't walk with headphones so my situational awareness is at maximum levels. It's nice hearing a normally loud car if they happen to be behind you just for the extra awareness (even if you're walking against traffic which I do whenever I can).

I've almost been hit 3 times from people going 40 mph straight through a 4-way stop sign in a 30 mph low traffic road, or just blatantly looking on their phone and peeling out from a stop sign while I'm in front of them. I had to jump out of the way once. I'll take all of the senses I can get!

ponker• 6 years ago

I prefer loud cars. I’ve often been surprised by bad drivers driving Teslas while the bad drivers in ICE cars I hear approaching.

lazyjones2• 6 years ago

Modern gasoline cars are very quiet compared to motorcycles, buses, trucks.

But they still get 100% of the hate...

bdamm4• 6 years ago

Well they're still much louder than an EV.

sandworm101• 6 years ago

>It makes me yearn for an urban future where personal car ownership is a distant memory.

Every time I had to got to SF it wasn't the cars that woke me up at night. It was sirens on the ambulances and fire trucks. Those are not ever going away.

Airplanes, driven by robots or not, are still going to be loud. Trucks, driven by robots or not, are still going to haul their heavy loads (resulting in road noise). Dogs will always bark. Kids will always play there music too loud. Private cars are not the source of every evil.

jschwartzi2• 6 years ago

The difference is that thousands of dogs, kids, and trucks don't pass by my house every morning on their way to work, then again in the evening on their way home.

sib• 6 years ago

"And gas-powered leafblowers. Oh man, those are the worst."

Gas-powered leafblowers pretty much define negative externalities:

> Pollution > Noise > The actual leaves being blown onto neighboring properties

Would be great to completely ban them.

powersnail• 6 years ago

I don't get gas-powered leaf-blowers. They are so loud, so polluting, so wasteful, yet so meaningless at the same time.

Back in college, I had to wear a mask every day, just because how many leaf-blower-induced dust clouds I had to walk through.

With the loudness and strong vibration, wouldn't it have significant impact on the health of the operator?

Is it actually more efficient than a manual sweeper/raker?

EamonnMR2• 6 years ago

It's a lot easier on the back.

EamonnMR2• 6 years ago

Large trucks are above a safe level when they drive by, no audiobook required.

jbeales2• 6 years ago

Vocational trucks, (think garbage trucks & dump trucks), are the ones that I'd love to electrify. Those can wake you up even if you're indoors.

Wingman4l72• 6 years ago

It seems like they are also an excellent candidate. Some are fleet vehicles, which means you can plan charging into schedules and routes, and they probably have maintenance contracts.

The potential issue I see is batteries not being sufficient for heavier duty trucks / loads -- the range could be impractical. Also, I have no idea what the power draw for a garbage truck compactor is, but it can't be small.

phjesusthatguy3• 6 years ago

I'll be adding my observances of my commute to OpenStreetMap shortly. Thank you!

idreyn2• 6 years ago

I think a variation of this comfort-optimized route planning tool would be really useful for cyclists as well. I've found that Google Maps favors streets with bike lanes when planning bike trips, but those are typically main thoroughfares where the bike lane is a last line of defense against aggressive drivers, delivery vehicles, and "dooring". Often these are paralleled by quieter streets where cars drive at careful speeds and a bike lane is not really necessary for safety.

cameronh90• 6 years ago

Check out Komoot. Myself and many in the UK swear by it for bicycle route planning.

dylan-m• 6 years ago

Strava does something interesting here with their route planner. It's a bit finicky, but it gravitates toward public segments for either running or cycling. A segment on Strava is like a well-known running route or a chunk of a path, and when you upload an activity it finds which segments you went along so you can see how your results change over time, and what other people are doing. So it generally gives better (or at least safer) routes than Google Maps since it's based on what people actually do :)

Alas, it takes a lot of effort to actually build a route with the thing.

boxcardavin• 6 years ago

Ebikers naturally start taking routes that optimize for safety and enjoyment over avoiding hills. It would be cool for Strava or Goog Maps to detect ebikers (easy to tell from speed vs road grade) and weight their routes more heavily in deciding the best route to recommend.

bobthepanda2• 6 years ago

Even better than just trying to detect it via ML, let it be a separate option to toggle.

matsemann• 6 years ago

Huh, I often find the opposite. If there's a nice bike path from A to B in an arc, Google often prefers a shorter path straight through a residential area. Which means multiple turns one has to memorize and also slow down for.

flas9sd• 6 years ago

"brouter-web" is an excellent online bike route planner, beyond the dozen profiles you can also edit a profile to your needs. For what you describe, the "safety" profile will avoid car traffic.

jakecopp2• 6 years ago

I think there are so many better routing apps for cyclists and walking but everybody defaults to Google Maps. Even people who ask me for advice on cycling routes sends me a Gmaps screenshot as if it's the only navigation app that exists.

Here are some examples I wrote down (I'm also an OSM mapper): https://jakecoppinger.blog/articles/the-best-apps-for-bicycl...

Assuming the future is already here with better navigation, how do we encourage people to use anything but Gmaps? Would love to hear any thoughts :)

ciex• 6 years ago

You should give https://www.komoot.de/ a try. It has a well-designed UI, very good routing, voice navigation (crucial for biking imo) and includes one map region for free.

mamurphy• 6 years ago

This reminds me of the recently-posted Trail Router[0] for jogging mapping.

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23802317

wiml• 6 years ago

Nice project! On the subject of different optimization goals for route planning, I was thinking about car travel. Google optimizes for travel time, but I often want to weight "route simplicity" higher than time — I'd rather take a straight shot down a mildly congested highway than wind through a bunch of peoples' backyards. And why not an option to "minimize deaths"? Some routes (and some turns) are more accident-prone than others; at Google scale you could save a lot of lives this way.

leetcrew2• 6 years ago

frankly, I wish there were a lot more settings to optimize for in google maps. I actually prefer to stay off the highway for short trips, even if it takes a little longer. it feels super wasteful to accelerate up to 60+ mph to merge safely, then slam on the brakes one or two exits later. similarly, google will often send me through complicated (and therefore dangerous, imo) intersections which could be avoided completely with a couple extra turns. sometimes I'm not in any real hurry to get somewhere; it would be nice to have a "scenic route" option for these cases.

unfortunately, I suspect the simplicity is more a deliberate design choice rather than mere laziness. I'm not holding my breath for these features, but I hope that one day a viable competitor may emerge to offer navigation for power users.

magicalhippo2• 6 years ago

similarly, google will often send me through complicated (and therefore dangerous, imo) intersections

Reminds me of another Google Maps story. Was picking up something second hand, so was driving somewhere unfamiliar. I followed Google Maps, and the route seemed reasonable.

Then I hit the residential area where my destination was. Google Maps told me to drive up this really narrow road to get onto another road. Looked really weird, but I couldn't see any other choice besides a long detour so I carefully drove up that road.

At my destination, I told the woman I was buying from about Google Maps and that narrow road. "So _that's_ why all those people are driving on that pedestrian road" she exclaimed.

Apparently I was not the first...

magicalhippo2• 6 years ago

Google optimizes for travel time

Speaking of Google Map route optimization...

I was out and about the other day and entered the next destination in Google Maps. It told me to drive 80km which would have taken over an hour due to the roads.

Fortunately I knew that had to be wrong. After a bit of poking I found I had turned on "avoid toll roads"... after switching that off, it showed me a 5 minute route instead.

Sure I had to pay a few bucks for it, but in my mind "avoid toll roads" does not mean "avoid toll roads at all cost".

eldenbishop• 6 years ago

I have no idea what google optimizes for but it's not time or distance. At least in my neighborhood (San Francisco) it almost alway pushes you onto "main" traffic streets over much faster and more direct routes. It's trivial to just drag the line to a better route and see the time drop by several minutes over just a few miles. And this is not a traffic thing, they are longer even late at night. Maybe some agreement with the district to prefer mandated high traffic areas?

kqr2• 6 years ago

I think it's simpler than that: they probably weigh in popularity to some degree already. It's a very cheap way to be able to get to a point where you can say, "it's not optimal, but at least it's not awful".

In other words, just like nobody got fired for buying IBM, nobody got fired for suggesting the popular streets.

chrisjarvis• 6 years ago

I'm hard-pressed to believe that Apple Maps may have something Google Maps doesn't, but I was able to choose between between a "faster" (by 5 minutes over nearly 5 hours) and "simpler" route for the drive I took from AZ to Utah 2 days ago.

emilburzo• 6 years ago

Waze went a bit in that direction, they have an option for "avoid difficult intersections".

ed312• 6 years ago

I've seen this repeatedly with Apple Maps. You consistently get a "simplest" (although not labelled as such), a "shortest distance" route, and a "fastest" route. I've consistently noticed Google Maps hyper-optimize for time but you end up with slightly crazier/higher # of turns. Also, Apple Maps re-routing tends to take the hint that I want to stay on a main round around a residential neighborhood vs trying to constantly re-route my down a side street. YMMV, but I actually prefer Apple Maps c.a. 2019+

userbinator• 6 years ago

I'll be a bit contrarian and say that I actually do enjoy the sounds of traffic, but only some sounds. Most late-model cars emit what I'd consider noise, but the low burbling of big V8s or the bassy notes of big trucks are music to my ears. Maybe it's just nostalgia...

supernova87a2• 6 years ago

Of course, the authors being from Germany, they may have different expectations about how the existing noise environment colors people's concern about a little more/less noise in general.

I remember taking subways (subways!, not even to mention HSR) in Germany (Munich, Berlin, etc) where you could hear a pin drop during the journey, and where you could talk to your fellow traveler in a whisper.

Go to New York or Boston, and people look at you like you're a wimp if you ask why the train is screeching so loudly.

And then another example, if you've lived in the UK for any time, you come to believe that cars are supposed to make the constant diesel-level cranking noise even at idle. And then you go across the channel and find that miraculously, cars can actually be manufactured to be quiet.

snakeboy• 6 years ago

In metro systems all over France I find the screech to be almost painful. Can anyone with more experience chip in on how say Paris compares to New York in this regard?

hedberg10• 6 years ago

Paris subway uses rubber tires so that is not an apple to apples comparison.[1]

Did you mean the break squeal[2] or the rail squeal[3]?

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-tyred_metro [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_shoe#Railway_tread_brake [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_squeal

the_pwner2244• 6 years ago

Go to New York or Boston, and people look at you like you're a wimp if you ask why the train is screeching so loudly.

To me it feels like trains in Chicago can get to dangerously loud levels for significant portions of the route, and IIRC NYC is worse. It's unfortunate that cities don't really seem to care much about this.

mumblemumble3• 6 years ago

Chicago granted CTA a special exemption to its noise ordinance.

There was a study that found that, while the subway can get uncomfortably loud, it probably doesn't represent a significant risk for riders. Probably pretty bad for operators, though. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28278069/

globular-toast2• 6 years ago

And then another example, if you've lived in the UK for any time, you come to believe that cars are supposed to make the constant diesel-level cranking noise even at idle. And then you go across the channel and find that miraculously, cars can actually be manufactured to be quiet.

Huh? We drive the same cars as them. The steering wheel being on the right doesn't make it several decibels louder at idle.

Diesel cars are everywhere in Europe. They're not as bad as they once were but, yes, they are generally awful.

The loudest "normal" traffic noises I've ever heard, by far, were in Paris at the Arc de triomphe. I didn't have an SPL meter with me, but that would almost certainly be above safe working levels for more than a few tens of minutes.

supernova87a2• 6 years ago

Living in the suburban London for 2 years, I observed that there was something about UK cars and engine noise levels at idle. I don't know whether it's average age related, but it was immediately noticeable.

viburnum• 6 years ago

This is nice but it would be better if people could enjoy their neighborhoods without having to think about noise and pollution.

onion2k• 6 years ago

It's probably not possible but it ought to take terrain topology and trees in to account. New motorways are usually built with earth banks topped with trees to stop noise pollution. Its very effective.

bob1029• 6 years ago

Noise pollution is the worst because of how ubiquitous it is. The stuff that really bothers me is in the <120hz range. Very hard to filter it out. Everyone is an interloper to some extent and some of the noise travels for miles.

Best option for me at this point is to just move further into the country and pray I can find internet. Hopefully Starlink or something similar will eventually unshackle me from the urban center.

oxplot• 6 years ago

This is awesome. We need more human centered navigation strategies. What I've always wanted in car navigation are:

- navigate via the least busy paths, even if it takes longer

- navigate via the least risky paths, for e.g. avoid right turns (in LHD countries) or left turns in RHD countries. Avoid u-turns.

odysseus• 6 years ago

UPS already has a nav system that avoids right turns when possible - maybe they could license their routing.

spodek• 6 years ago

Sorry if off-topic, but this community may be able to help with a long-term problem.

I live in Manhattan across the street from a firehouse. Every day they test their devices to get through locked doors that are basically chain saws. Imagine someone testing a couple chain saws every day at a random time between 9am and 7pm.

I've spoken to them to find out why daily ("It would be a shame if we showed up to a fire and found out it didn't work then."), politely pointing out that after testing it, they don't know if it works since that test may have broken it. They don't know why daily either.

Anyone have any ideas on how to optimize the testing schedule for an engine? I'd love data relating testing frequency with safety.

kqr2• 6 years ago

This is where the manufacturing monitoring guys know a lot of stuff. Maybe statistical process control can help, maybe some other type of fault modeling is more appropriate.

Whichever way, rest assured the manufacturing industry has studied this over Styx and back. Look up what they found out!

osdiab• 6 years ago

The US is so loud! I don’t know if it’s true but one of my theories is that a lot of US cities consist of uninterrupted grids, and noise from a much larger area than in cities with messily organized roads like those in Tokyo where I live now, ends up being audible at any given place. In Manhattan you can hear sirens from like 30 streets away - but here, walk 5 minutes from the biggest stations and intersections and it’s dead silent.

Also, I noticed when I was living in Shanghai that it has gotten pretty silent there too with the dominance of electric vehicles, which has made places like the French Concession a pleasure to stroll in.

Quiet route planning for pedestrians in traffic noise polluted environments

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