Vehicle noise interference and its impact on the community

Noise is considered as a chronic stressor to human being. Vehicle origin noise assed in 12 different location s of Burdwan town during three different specified times i.e. 7:30-8:30 a.m., 1:30-2:30 p.m. and 4:00-5:00 p.m. Road traffic was found to be the most important source of community noise at the studied sites. The noise levels of all the twelve places were found to be beyond the permissible limit (70 dB (A)) during both morning and afternoon time. Leq (equivalent noise level) values ranged from 90.16 to 110.01; 89.63-101.30 and 89.54-101.25 during 7:30-8:30 a.m; 1:302:30 p.m. and 4:00-5:00 p.m. respectively. LNP values ranges from 97.3 to 130.24; 94.56 to 110.32 and 93.69 to 114.65 dB while TNI values ranges from 63.21 to 82.72; 65.66 to 99.49 and 62.89 to 81.64 dB during 7:30-8:30 a.m; 1:30-2:30 p.m; and 4:00-5:00 p.m. respectively. Analysis of variance results indicate the noise level at different time significantly different at 1% level of significance. A questionnaire based public health survey was carried out among 180 local inhabitants and majority of the respondents (81%) irritated with air-horn along with other symptoms (headache 66%; mental stress 12%; annoyed 77%; and sleep loss 33%). These data are very useful to be used as reference and guideline