Mobility and life quality relationships – Measurement and perception of noise in urban context

Noise in urban context is one of the main concern in terms of societal impact. In fact, sound environment is adressing issues at various levels: transmission of information, social relations, perception of comfort, and in the worst cases, health effects on city-dwellers. The paper will present the first steps of an academic research concerning measurement and perception of noise in urban context – otherwise integrated into the broader framework of a Chair of Research dealing with relationships between mobility and quality of life in urban environments, in terms of air/sound pollution and healthcare. The following content will be developed : i/ elements of a state-of-the-art in the joined fields of measurement/simulation and perceptual evaluation of urban soundscapes; ii/ first planned axes of research focusing on interactions between elementary sources mainly coming from urban mobility – assuming that transportation is one of the main source of noise in the city – with their context either in physical and perceptual points of view; iii/ according to the work progress, first results concerning preliminary experiments conducted on dedicated urban environments.