ABSTRACT
Although considerable efforts have been made in community noise control, recent research has shown that reducing the sound level does not necessarily lead to better acoustic comfort in urban areas (de Ruiter 2000, 2004; Schulte-Fortkamp 2001). For example, when the SPL is below a certain value, people’s acoustic comfort evaluation is not related to the sound level, whereas the type of sound sources, the characteristics of users, and other factors play an important role (Ballas 1993; Gaver 1993; Maffiolo et al. 1997; Dubois 2000; Yang and Kang 2005a).
