Need for noise standards for various types of roads in urban area - a review

In older days, vehicle growth was a blessing; but nowadays, it is destroying the environment. Its effect can be seen not only in India, but also all over the world. One of the effects is its generation of noise due to the movement of traffic. Various countries have evolved norms for traffic noise; in India very few efforts have been made in this field. In this paper, a number of research works carried out in India and abroad have been reviewed to ascertain whether any guidelines on the formulation of traffic noise standards were made. International comparison of noise standards are also carried out in this paper. It is observed that most of the studies on traffic noise are related to the development of modelling of traffic noise. This study therefore highlights the need for working on the development of noise standards for different conditions of roads and land uses.