A Study on the Intensity of Traffic Induced Noise on Traffic Police at Major Collector and Arterial Roads in Dhaka City

Abstract

The world is experiencing rapid economic growth and different pollutions are generated as its bi-product. Technological innovations and urbanization are taking place at a rapid pace, however, at the cost of bringing some negative impacts. The number of industries and automobiles have been increasing and so do noise. This noise is such a kind of pollution which damages the physical and mental state of people in a silent way without them realizing. Millions of people throughout the globe are being affected by noise pollution on a regular basis. Bangladesh, being a developing country, has somewhat moderate road system but the spike in recent traffic volume has made the situation worse as traffic congestion has made people daily life miserable and noise pollution is one of its by-products. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, home to numerous educational and commercial institutions is a terribly noisy and raucous place. People of different ages regularly use the roads and fall in the exposure of the noise pollution. Among them, traffic police is a vulnerable community continuously exposed this traffic induced noise throughout their service life. This not only has physical and psychological adverse impact on their health but also affects the service they provide every day. Despite this detrimental effect of noise, their situation and health conditions are often ignored. As traffic policemen serve a great responsibility to maintain traffic management and road safety, evaluating the traffic generated noise at their workplace is absolute necessary.

This study aims to analyze the level of noise that the traffic policemen are exposed during their duty periods. Moreover, this research work will give an overview on the variation of noise level among different major arterial and collector roads at different time periods and different days of week. For collecting sample data, one Arterial Road (Mirpur) and two Collector Roads (Khamarbari and Gulshan) are selected inside Dhaka city. The noise level (dB) will be measured using Digital Noise Meter exactly where the traffic policemen are positioned. The required data will be collected during peak, off-peak and evening peak hours each day of the week. Unpaired T-test analysis will be carried out for both equal and unequal variances and significant differences will be observed by comparing the average noise levels.

The results will represent a typical day-to-day traffic noise pollution scenario around the workplace of traffic police which gives an understanding about the intensity and exposure of noise they encountered every day. Moreover, variation in average noise levels will be revealed based on the type of road in consideration with different days of week and different time periods. The outcome of this study will help the associated policy makers to take necessary measures that will reduce the long-term effects and sufferings of traffic policemen from adverse impact of noise pollution.