Investigation and Assessment of Road Traffic Noise: a Case Study in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Noise pollution is recognized as a major environmental issue which is significantly related to the risk for the human health. The purpose of this study was to investigate and assess the noise pollution in some typical locations of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) due to road traffic. L-Aeq values measured at seven representative sites in 2015 and 2016 showed the existence of road traffic noise pollution. The study found that the statistical noise level with traffic noise index (TNI) throughout the studied area in 2015 has an average TNI2015 of 95.5 +/- 20.78 dB with the range from 66.7 to 125.6 dB. The statistical noise level TNI2016 in 2016 showed that the noise levels of all the measured sites were between 49.4 and 103.8 dB and has an average of 70.9 +/- 22.38 dB. The maximum value of TNI was recorded at site S2 with 124.9 dB (weekdays) and 122.0 dB (weekends), respectively. Pairwise comparisons showed that there were significant differences between the results of the weekdays and weekends for almost of studying sites (p < 0.05). Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to describe the association between road traffic-related noise and environmental conditions. The effects of environmental factors on TNI showed an important impact of road traffic volumes and wind speeds with standardized coefficients of significance at 0.05. Based on these findings, it could be used for the potential of estimating noise levels and contributing to the sustainable urban development in HCMC.