Application of Machine Learning to Include Honking Effect in Vehicular Traffic Noise Prediction

A vehicular road traffic noise prediction methodology based on machine learning techniques has been presented. The road traffic parameters that have been considered are traffic volume, percentage of heavy vehicles, honking occurrences and the equivalent continuous sound pressure level. Leq A method to include the honking effect in the traffic noise prediction has been illustrated. The techniques that have been used for the prediction of traffic noise are decision trees, random forests, generalized linear models and artificial neural networks. The results obtained by using these methods have been compared on the basis of mean square error, correlation coefficient, coefficient of determination and accuracy. It has been observed that honking is an important parameter and contributes to the overall traffic noise, especially in congested Indian road traffic conditions. The effects of honking noise on the human health cannot be ignored and it should be included as a parameter in the future traffic noise prediction models.