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

~~~
scythe
>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

~~~
aitchnyu
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.

~~~
zby
That depends on speed for sure.

~~~
bradlys
Above 20mph, you’re mostly hearing tire noise as far as I can tell. And I’d
say most driving is above 20.

Most people kind of forget about tire noise when purchasing tires. I don’t
think most people put much thought in tires ever anyway.

~~~
sagarm
Exactly why there need to be regulations for tire noise.

~~~
bradlys
Unlikely to ever pass - I'd assume. All those who like to go off roading would
see all their tires never pass.

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supernova87a
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.

~~~
the_pwner224
> 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.

~~~
mumblemumble
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/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28278069/)

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idreyn
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.

~~~
jakecopp
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...](https://jakecoppinger.blog/articles/the-best-apps-for-bicycle-
directions-2020/)

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
You should give [https://www.komoot.de/](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.

~~~
jakecopp
Thanks, will do!

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osdiab
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.

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wiml
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.

~~~
leetcrew
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.

~~~
magicalhippo
> 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...

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bob1029
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.

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

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

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nn3
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.

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spodek
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.

~~~
kqr
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!

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phjesusthatguy3
I'll be adding my observances of my commute to OpenStreetMap shortly. Thank
you!

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

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

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onion2k
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.

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userbinator
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...

