3D complete traffic noise analysis based on CityGML

Nowadays, transportation plays a more and more significant role in our daily life but produces noise. Noise not only causes annoyance and health problems, but also shows effects on economics. In 2002, the European Union published the Common Noise Assessment methods (Kephalopoulos et al. 2012). The objective of this paper is to present a method for simulating the noise propagation in 3D and calculating traffic noise on building façade level with different height by using 3D city model and integrating all noise coming from individual traffic such as cars or motorcycles as well as planes and railroad based vehicles. Since noise sources are located in our 3D urban environment—the analysis and the mapping has to cover the 3D aspect as well. A neighborhood of Berlin was chosen as research area. Currently, we propose a semi-automatic solution for 3D noise mapping: generating 3D observer points from CityGML building data; modeling 3D propagation path and calculating different kinds of traffic noise level. The total noise levels are then calculated by estimating the total annoyance based on effect equivalent sound pressure levels for different types of traffic source. The results are presented as a 3D map. In the future this approach can be further developed to an on-the-fly tool, that makes use publicly available data and processes to determine the noise for one building to a certain point in time. Besides that we found out that more investigation and evaluation on noise calculation methods are needed. Thus the development of near real time calculation methods together with noise measurements is required. © 2017, Springer International Publishing AG.