Research on the Effect of Urban Road Traffic Soundscape on Drivers' Psychological Acoustics

Like outside scenery, the car interior noise and road condition will affect the driver's mental state when driving. In order to explore the influence of external visual and auditory factors on the driver's mood in the driving process based on research of traffic soundscape, this paper has selected four backbone roads of Tianjin city (China) to test and drive a gasoline passenger vehicle at different speeds. Near Acoustic Holographic was used to scan interior acoustic field distribution, while the tracking shot of the driver's location was recorded by a Sony camera. People with different characteristics were invited to watch the video and completed a self-designed survey questionnaire. The external factors affecting the driver's mood were explored by analyzing all these data. After the investigation, we found that the sound field distribution inside the car could be affected directly and significantly by the opening and closing the car window when driving; in the case of keeping the window closed, the acoustic characteristics of the car cabin was relatively stable; and the visual impact factor of the driver's mood is mainly related to the traffic congestion degree and the construction quality of road surface, whereas the road appearance and aesthetics, which people usually concern about have very little influence.