The effect of electric vehicles on urban noise maps

Abstract The electric vehicle is the best-positioned alternative to the ICE conventional vehicle become of, among other reasons, its environment friendly properties. One of its most significant properties is its quiet electric engine which can be a good tool for decreasing noise pollution in cities. In this respect, the electric vehicle can be acoustically assessed from different points of view; on the one hand, as a moving point source, its detectability or annoyance for pedestrians can be studied, and, on the other hand, as part of the traffic flow in a road its effect on the whole noise map. In this paper the effect of introducing a flow of electric vehicles into real urban traffic has been studied and quantified. For this purpose, experimental procedures were used to add to the NMPB ROUTES noise prediction model of the electric vehicle as a potential noise source in the traffic flow. Several conditions have been analysed and was evaluated the change in the number of citizens exposed to diverse ranges of noise levels.