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Quiet route planning for pedestrians in traffic noise polluted environments
- ahelwer 6y agoWith coronavirus lockdown I've taken to going on long strolls while listening to audiobooks. Since I don't like wearing noise-canceling headphones due to situational awareness concerns (opting for a cheap pair of Koss PortaPros), it has struck me just how loud a regular car is as it drives by at low speed. I have to crank up the volume above a safe level to continue listening to my book as one drives by. It makes me yearn for an urban future where personal car ownership is a distant memory. And gas-powered leafblowers. Oh man, those are the worst. DC was right to ban them.
- clairity 6y ago> "And gas-powered leafblowers. Oh man, those are the worst. DC was right to ban them." agreed, but mostly for the atrocious pollution those things put out. here in LA, they're also banned but still widely used. i can smell them, let alone hear them, through my window nearly a hundred feet away. with electric vehicles still rising, i can't wait for the day we can relegate most (all?) gas-powered machines to well-segregated industrial areas and thereby reduce both noise and air pollution drastically in our living environments.
- stefan_ 6y agoSince we are at it, can we ban gasoline scooters? They feature the same leafblower engines, and I have the impression they have been "grandfathered" in emissions legislation so often that the entire population must have been replaced three times over. China has it right, those prehistoric things have no place anymore.
- twblalock 6y agoIf you ban gas-powered scooters I don't think it would make much difference. The people who ride them won't care.
- voisin 6y agoHow about gas powered lawnmowers? Far more prevalent, awful for both sound and emissions.
- ip26 6y agoLawn mowers at least have four-stroke engines instead of two. Although, as you say, vastly more prevalent.
- toxik 6y agoHuh, I thought most of them were two stroke.
- Spooky23 6y agoNot for a long time. My cheap Walmart Murray was like $75 and is a fairly efficient four stroke, but is incredibly weak with the emissions tech and awful engine!
- toxik 6y agoI guess it’s a question of where you live. I meant the actual lawnmowers people use rather than what is on the shelves today - I have only seen oily old two-strokers around me. Also I thought low power gasoline engines were more efficient, but I guess they tend not to have any catalytic converters
- bostonpete 6y agoAll two-stroke engines require a gasoline/oil mix, AFAIK? I've used a dozen or so lawnmowers going back 40 years and don't think I've ever used one that required a mix...
- toxik 6y agoThat’s correct. I had a scooter in Asia that took oil in the fuel port just a couple years ago.
- upofadown 6y agoMy Yamaha 150 BWs gas powered scooter is 4 stroke and has a catalytic converter. Are 2 stroke scooters even a thing anymore?
- Tade0 6y agoThey were in the EU until 2018, when two-wheel vehicles that didn't comply to the EURO 4 emissions standard were phased out. There are still many 2017 and earlier units on the roads, but give it a few years and they'll be gone as well.
- samoa42 6y agoin summertimes there are a lot of old, loud and stinky 2-stroke scooters in german citys. motorcyles usually don't have dampening around the engine or a silent exhaust because it doesn't look/sound as cool. i'd wager to say your bike is louder as a modern gasoline car.
- lmm 6y agoThey're a lot less antisocial than cars in terms of how much space they take up, and in terms of pollution per person-km as well. We could build much more liveable places if we embraced them.
- black_puppydog 6y agoI live in the inner city of Grenoble, France, and briefly stayed in Paris too. Scooters are the worst because there seems to be no effective way to keep them out of pedestrian areas at night. I'd like to see studies of how many lost hours of sleep a single scooter ripping through a quiet night causes when it traverses the inner city here. But I do love the new generation of electric scooters. They're great!
- iso1631 6y agoOr we could embrace electric mopeds instead.
- samoa42 6y agoice-scooters are the most antisocial vehicle available. they're loud as hell, stinky, smokey _and_ slow, especially the two-cyle engine type. imo loud motorcyles are kind of 'recreational vehicle' and should be banned.
- lmm 6y agoI'm all for restrictions on loud or polluting vehicles, but they should be applied equally to cars as well. Plenty of people use two-wheel vehicles for commuting or essential journeys, and that's something we should encourage, since it's a lot less wasteful than a single-occupancy car.
- drivers99 6y agoExact same situation for me with regard to noise and audiobooks/podcasts. Another one is looking into cars' bright headlights at night. I started finding ways to go along residential streets instead of arterial ones. There is actually a wall along the sides of the arterial road making the difference even greater (extra noise on the arterial, less on the residential one street away). They have a big sidewalk on the arterial but they also have sprinklers overspraying on them as well. So, one more benefit to stay off them. Typical example: DTC Blvd (supposedly nice but loud and you get sprayed with sprinklers) https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6123322,-104.8861333,3a,75y,115.84h,80.74t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1smeM0ikFvjurPvNa_xX1oMQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DmeM0ikFvjurPvNa_xX1oMQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D38.292915%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6123322,-104.8861333,3a,75y,... vs 1 block over, doesn't even have sidewalks, but is much nicer to walk through. There are trails which let you get through to the next area. https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6125315,-104.8823492,3a,75y,178.71h,90.62t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sBWg8aUT-gAZXmkyRe7b_GQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DBWg8aUT-gAZXmkyRe7b_GQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D225.4365%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6125315,-104.8823492,3a,75y,... (There are also multi-use paths nearby as well but they are crowded lately under the circumstances. The parks are closed after dusk.)
- masklinn 6y ago> Since I don't like wearing noise-canceling headphones due to situational awareness concerns That's kinda why I was interested in noise-cancelling cans with a "transparency" mode, able to feed back into the 'cans as needed/desired. Haven't had the occasion to even try one though.
- idreyn 6y agoThe "ambient sound" mode on my Sony WH-1000XM2 headphones works very well for this. I find it useful for video calls; without the feedback of hearing my own voice I tend towards shouting.
- masklinn 6y agoNice. Is the ambient curve customisable? (e.g. allow voice to go through easily but some other noises less so). How large are the ear pads (I have rather large and prominent ears so fitting them inside the pads can be a hassle and having the cartilage pressed against the skull is quickly uncomfortable).
- mathieuh 6y agoI have the same ones and yes it is, you adjust it through the app. They have big cups, I would consider myself to have average-sized ears and I can move them around on my head without my ears touching.
- toxik 6y agoThat happens automatically once the codec switches to telephony - along with a quite significant difference in audio quality.
- virgil_disgr4ce 6y agoI use the pass-through mode of my Jabra Elites whenever I'm in a store or need to interact with people or otherwise hear / be aware. I feel sort of bad keeping the earphones in, because I don't want people to think I'm being an asshole, but I can generally hear them just fine.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoLeaf blowers suck. Loud and smelly. I have also heard that they are destroying the habitat of insects which will have long term consequences for our ecosystem.
- saagarjha 6y agoWhen going on walks, I like to note down spots where I can't hear any man-made noise. Even after lockdown anywhere within ~1000 feet of I-280 doesn't qualify, even from the backside of De Anza's knoll where you can't see it anymore and there's nothing else that could possibly make noise. But there is a stretch of west Stevens Creek Road, away from overhead power lines, that is now mostly quiet for minutes at a time whereas before you'd only get a couple seconds before a car would turn into one of the gated communities or a truck would go past on its way to the Permanente plant. It's not like there was a steady stream of these going past–no, the road is straight so you'd hear them from hundreds of feet away. Not even electric cars solve the issue that a vehicle that's moving past a crawl…is still kind of loud.
- legerdemain 6y agoIt's basically impossible to find areas of quiet on the peninsula, if you want genuine quiet. Even the parks along Skyline have a consistent level of noise from planes overhead.
- bdamm 6y agoGenuine quiet is really tough. Even in the middle of Yosemite you can hear planes going by at 25 or 30 thousand feet. Planes flying Denver to San Francisco are already on an approach track when they fly over Yosemite.
- shmageggy 6y agoGordon Hempton has been documenting the decline of spaces free from man made noise, and it's shocking how few places there are remaining. https://www.outsideonline.com/2397949/quiet-parks-international-gordon-hempton https://www.outsideonline.com/2397949/quiet-parks-internatio...
- saagarjha 6y agoYeah, I think you're probably right. You'd think you can get some quiet by standing in the middle of a hundred acres of park, separated from the outside world by a quarter mile of grassy hills and fifty-feet tall glass walls, and you'll get some quiet for a bit…but then a plane will fly overhead every ten minutes or so on a final approach to SFO from LAX :( So I call a place "quiet" if I would call it that for more than a minute at a time.
- Swizec 6y ago> I have to crank up the volume above a safe level to continue listening to my book as one drives by This is why I use noise cancelling headphones when running. The lower volume means I have more situational awareness. My hearing isn’t slamming against the redline from high music/book volume so my brain doesn’t have to keep filtering. When something happens it’s more likely to stand out and I’ll hear it. Plus my ears don’t hurt after a 2 hour run. Similar effect as earplugs on a motorcycle.
- ahelwer 6y agoInterested in your experience here. Do you feel safe when, for example, crossing the street?
- Swizec 6y agoSuper safe. But I’m also the kind of guy who looks both ways crossing a one-way street and checks blind spots when walking. Maybe it comes from years of boosted boards and motorcycles. Got very used to looking around. And it’s always possible that my ears/brain are just weird. I find that noise bothers me more than most people. I can hear someone crinkling candy wrappers from across the office through my QC-35 with music on. And it will drive me bonkers.
- hnick 6y agoYeah it was drilled into us at an early age in Australia and I still practice the habit: Look right, look left, look right again when crossing. My main worry is people turning into driveways as I'm walking along the path, or bikes approaching (illegally) from behind on the path.
- formerly_proven 6y agoOn a lot of displays I frequently have to resize the browser window or reduce its height to change the "line hum" caused by text to a tone that doesn't annoy me. Most people don't even know that displays make noise from text. I've never even see someone bring it up in display reviews... the closest someone got was mentioning that a particular screen made a variable coil whine noise depending on the brightness setting (another common thing).
- cheschire 6y agoI picked up some bone conducting headphones. Not the best audio quality but I got them for bike riding. They also function perfectly on airplanes in conjunction with pressure equalizing ear plugs.
- Wingman4l7 6y agoI have a non-name-brand pair. Audio quality is only acceptable for podcasts or audiobooks. They're excellent for in-house use (where you'd like to have your attention be readily available by others). Unfortunately they are worse than other options outside; their lack of passive noise-blocking makes them easily overwhelmed by environmental noises. If you need high situational awareness outdoors, the best option I've found is simple: using a single wireless earbud. This is not really acceptable for music, unfortunately, but is a good compromise solution for spoken word content.
- scythe 6y ago>It makes me yearn for an urban future where personal car ownership is a distant memory. You won't have to wait that long -- EVs reduce noise substantially and mass adoption is probably one to three decades away depending on the city
- leetcrew 6y agomaybe true to an extent, but most modern ICE vehicles have pretty quiet exhausts. above parking lot speeds, you are mostly hearing noise from the tires and displacement of air.
- aitchnyu 6y agoSeems noise levels wont improve much with today's tires: > Traffic noise is created by vehicle exhaust systems, engines, and by contact of tires with the road during travel. Of these, tire contact with the road accounts for 75 to 90 percent of the overall traffic noise.
- Spooky23 6y agoI work on my front patio, and I wish I had run a dB meter thoroughout my Covid experience. I live in the city and it was silent in early May — at one point I observed no cars on the nearby avenue for 20 minutes. As for leaf blowers, if you think gas is bad, try for the extra capacity battery powered ones with higher RPM. Sounds like someone screaming.
- Nasrudith 6y agoPeople complained more about cars being quiet and they assume fairly hard of hearing and poor vision as a baseline essentially. I personally consider it something that sucks and would love them quieter while considering their current mandated state a justifiable lesser evil. Deliberately loudened motorcycles and sportcars because fools think louder is faster can go straight to hell though.
- andrepd 6y ago>Deliberately loudened motorcycles and sportcars because fools think louder is faster can go straight to hell though. I don't get it. Why can a shithead on a motorcycle get away with bothering hundreds of people by revving hard in the street? Why do they get away with higher noise ceilings than cars?
- rapind 6y agoGrab a megaphone with the siren sound effect and have some fun with them.
- MetalGuru 6y agoSeriously! The worst! The South Park episode that makes fun of this group is hilarious.
- Ntrails 6y agoWhy are buskers allowed to bellow out whatever garbage They want through amplifiers which are just as loud and to me more obnoxious?
- hiharryhere 6y agoOh come on. That’s a ridiculous equivalency. Buskers aren’t constantly moving through residential neighborhoods at speed, disturbing hundreds in their homes. I’d be annoyed by a one man band with knee cymbals and a bass drum pacing up and down my cul-de-sac too.
- 6y ago
- ponker 6y agoI prefer loud cars. I’ve often been surprised by bad drivers driving Teslas while the bad drivers in ICE cars I hear approaching.
- lazyjones 6y agoModern gasoline cars are very quiet compared to motorcycles, buses, trucks. But they still get 100% of the hate...
- sandworm101 6y ago>>It makes me yearn for an urban future where personal car ownership is a distant memory. Every time I had to got to SF it wasn't the cars that woke me up at night. It was sirens on the ambulances and fire trucks. Those are not ever going away. Airplanes, driven by robots or not, are still going to be loud. Trucks, driven by robots or not, are still going to haul their heavy loads (resulting in road noise). Dogs will always bark. Kids will always play there music too loud. Private cars are not the source of every evil.
- jschwartzi 6y agoThe difference is that thousands of dogs, kids, and trucks don't pass by my house every morning on their way to work, then again in the evening on their way home.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sib 6y ago"And gas-powered leafblowers. Oh man, those are the worst." Gas-powered leafblowers pretty much define negative externalities: >> Pollution >> Noise >> The actual leaves being blown onto neighboring properties Would be great to completely ban them.
- powersnail 6y agoI don't get gas-powered leaf-blowers. They are so loud, so polluting, so wasteful, yet so meaningless at the same time. Back in college, I had to wear a mask every day, just because how many leaf-blower-induced dust clouds I had to walk through. With the loudness and strong vibration, wouldn't it have significant impact on the health of the operator? Is it actually more efficient than a manual sweeper/raker?
- EamonnMR 6y agoIt's a lot easier on the back.
- EamonnMR 6y agoLarge trucks are above a safe level when they drive by, no audiobook required.
- jbeales 6y agoVocational trucks, (think garbage trucks & dump trucks), are the ones that I'd love to electrify. Those can wake you up even if you're indoors.
- Wingman4l7 6y agoIt seems like they are also an excellent candidate. Some are fleet vehicles, which means you can plan charging into schedules and routes, and they probably have maintenance contracts. The potential issue I see is batteries not being sufficient for heavier duty trucks / loads -- the range could be impractical. Also, I have no idea what the power draw for a garbage truck compactor is, but it can't be small.
- jbeales 6y agoI would think so too, (that batteries may not have enough energy). On the other hand, it looks like some are about to be used in New Jersey: https://www.government-fleet.com/10122076/jersey-city-to-receive-electric-refuse-trucks https://www.government-fleet.com/10122076/jersey-city-to-rec... I guess when it comes down to it a fuel tank only holds so much energy, and if we think we can replace a fuel tank with batteries on another kind of truck with an acceptable loss in range, then maybe we can do the same on a garbage truck. They were burning diesel to run the compactor before, so it may not be much difference.
- nn3 6y agoVery cool. I would totally use that if it was available in an easy app for my city. Hopefully that research migrates quickly to the industry.
- phjesusthatguy3 6y agoI'll be adding my observances of my commute to OpenStreetMap shortly. Thank you!
- idreyn 6y agoI think a variation of this comfort-optimized route planning tool would be really useful for cyclists as well. I've found that Google Maps favors streets with bike lanes when planning bike trips, but those are typically main thoroughfares where the bike lane is a last line of defense against aggressive drivers, delivery vehicles, and "dooring". Often these are paralleled by quieter streets where cars drive at careful speeds and a bike lane is not really necessary for safety.
- cameronh90 6y agoCheck out Komoot. Myself and many in the UK swear by it for bicycle route planning.
- dylan-m 6y agoStrava does something interesting here with their route planner. It's a bit finicky, but it gravitates toward public segments for either running or cycling. A segment on Strava is like a well-known running route or a chunk of a path, and when you upload an activity it finds which segments you went along so you can see how your results change over time, and what other people are doing. So it generally gives better (or at least safer) routes than Google Maps since it's based on what people actually do :) Alas, it takes a lot of effort to actually build a route with the thing.
- boxcardavin 6y agoEbikers naturally start taking routes that optimize for safety and enjoyment over avoiding hills. It would be cool for Strava or Goog Maps to detect ebikers (easy to tell from speed vs road grade) and weight their routes more heavily in deciding the best route to recommend.
- bobthepanda 6y agoEven better than just trying to detect it via ML, let it be a separate option to toggle.
- bdamm 6y ago
- mamurphy 6y agoThis reminds me of the recently-posted Trail Router[0] for jogging mapping. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23802317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23802317
- wiml 6y agoNice project! On the subject of different optimization goals for route planning, I was thinking about car travel. Google optimizes for travel time, but I often want to weight "route simplicity" higher than time — I'd rather take a straight shot down a mildly congested highway than wind through a bunch of peoples' backyards. And why not an option to "minimize deaths"? Some routes (and some turns) are more accident-prone than others; at Google scale you could save a lot of lives this way.
- leetcrew 6y agofrankly, I wish there were a lot more settings to optimize for in google maps. I actually prefer to stay off the highway for short trips, even if it takes a little longer. it feels super wasteful to accelerate up to 60+ mph to merge safely, then slam on the brakes one or two exits later. similarly, google will often send me through complicated (and therefore dangerous, imo) intersections which could be avoided completely with a couple extra turns. sometimes I'm not in any real hurry to get somewhere; it would be nice to have a "scenic route" option for these cases. unfortunately, I suspect the simplicity is more a deliberate design choice rather than mere laziness. I'm not holding my breath for these features, but I hope that one day a viable competitor may emerge to offer navigation for power users.
- magicalhippo 6y ago> similarly, google will often send me through complicated (and therefore dangerous, imo) intersections Reminds me of another Google Maps story. Was picking up something second hand, so was driving somewhere unfamiliar. I followed Google Maps, and the route seemed reasonable. Then I hit the residential area where my destination was. Google Maps told me to drive up this really narrow road to get onto another road. Looked really weird, but I couldn't see any other choice besides a long detour so I carefully drove up that road. At my destination, I told the woman I was buying from about Google Maps and that narrow road. "So _that's_ why all those people are driving on that pedestrian road" she exclaimed. Apparently I was not the first...
- magicalhippo 6y ago> Google optimizes for travel time Speaking of Google Map route optimization... I was out and about the other day and entered the next destination in Google Maps. It told me to drive 80km which would have taken over an hour due to the roads. Fortunately I knew that had to be wrong. After a bit of poking I found I had turned on "avoid toll roads"... after switching that off, it showed me a 5 minute route instead. Sure I had to pay a few bucks for it, but in my mind "avoid toll roads" does not mean "avoid toll roads at all cost".
- userbinator 6y agoI'll be a bit contrarian and say that I actually do enjoy the sounds of traffic, but only some sounds. Most late-model cars emit what I'd consider noise, but the low burbling of big V8s or the bassy notes of big trucks are music to my ears. Maybe it's just nostalgia...
- supernova87a 6y agoOf course, the authors being from Germany, they may have different expectations about how the existing noise environment colors people's concern about a little more/less noise in general. I remember taking subways (subways!, not even to mention HSR) in Germany (Munich, Berlin, etc) where you could hear a pin drop during the journey, and where you could talk to your fellow traveler in a whisper. Go to New York or Boston, and people look at you like you're a wimp if you ask why the train is screeching so loudly. And then another example, if you've lived in the UK for any time, you come to believe that cars are supposed to make the constant diesel-level cranking noise even at idle. And then you go across the channel and find that miraculously, cars can actually be manufactured to be quiet.
- snakeboy 6y agoIn metro systems all over France I find the screech to be almost painful. Can anyone with more experience chip in on how say Paris compares to New York in this regard?
- hedberg10 6y agoParis subway uses rubber tires so that is not an apple to apples comparison.[1] Did you mean the break squeal[2] or the rail squeal[3]? [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-tyred_metro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-tyred_metro [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_shoe#Railway_tread_brake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_shoe#Railway_tread_brake [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_squeal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_squeal
- the_pwner224 6y ago> Go to New York or Boston, and people look at you like you're a wimp if you ask why the train is screeching so loudly. To me it feels like trains in Chicago can get to dangerously loud levels for significant portions of the route, and IIRC NYC is worse. It's unfortunate that cities don't really seem to care much about this.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
- viburnum 6y agoThis is nice but it would be better if people could enjoy their neighborhoods without having to think about noise and pollution.
- onion2k 6y agoIt's probably not possible but it ought to take terrain topology and trees in to account. New motorways are usually built with earth banks topped with trees to stop noise pollution. Its very effective.
- bob1029 6y agoNoise pollution is the worst because of how ubiquitous it is. The stuff that really bothers me is in the <120hz range. Very hard to filter it out. Everyone is an interloper to some extent and some of the noise travels for miles. Best option for me at this point is to just move further into the country and pray I can find internet. Hopefully Starlink or something similar will eventually unshackle me from the urban center.
- oxplot 6y agoThis is awesome. We need more human centered navigation strategies. What I've always wanted in car navigation are: - navigate via the least busy paths, even if it takes longer - navigate via the least risky paths, for e.g. avoid right turns (in LHD countries) or left turns in RHD countries. Avoid u-turns.
- odysseus 6y agoUPS already has a nav system that avoids right turns when possible - maybe they could license their routing.
- spodek 6y agoSorry if off-topic, but this community may be able to help with a long-term problem. I live in Manhattan across the street from a firehouse. Every day they test their devices to get through locked doors that are basically chain saws. Imagine someone testing a couple chain saws every day at a random time between 9am and 7pm. I've spoken to them to find out why daily ("It would be a shame if we showed up to a fire and found out it didn't work then."), politely pointing out that after testing it, they don't know if it works since that test may have broken it. They don't know why daily either. Anyone have any ideas on how to optimize the testing schedule for an engine? I'd love data relating testing frequency with safety.
- kqr 6y agoThis is where the manufacturing monitoring guys know a lot of stuff. Maybe statistical process control can help, maybe some other type of fault modeling is more appropriate. Whichever way, rest assured the manufacturing industry has studied this over Styx and back. Look up what they found out!
- osdiab 6y agoThe US is so loud! I don’t know if it’s true but one of my theories is that a lot of US cities consist of uninterrupted grids, and noise from a much larger area than in cities with messily organized roads like those in Tokyo where I live now, ends up being audible at any given place. In Manhattan you can hear sirens from like 30 streets away - but here, walk 5 minutes from the biggest stations and intersections and it’s dead silent. Also, I noticed when I was living in Shanghai that it has gotten pretty silent there too with the dominance of electric vehicles, which has made places like the French Concession a pleasure to stroll in.