Urban traffic noise is commonly simulated using prediction models that cannot determine what influence small-scale roadside structures have on the perceived qualities. This thesis investigates whether the presence of a sidewalk produces perceptible differences in simulated road-traffic noise compared to a simplified street model that is flat and omits the elevated sidewalk.

A three-alternative forced choice listening experiment was conducted with 25 participants using traffic-noise-like stimuli for different source positions and receiver heights. The responses were statistically evaluated and examined in relation to acoustic and psychoacoustic parameters, as well as the corresponding source–receiver geometry.

The results show that participants could distinguish between the flat and sidewalk conditions, although discrimination performance varied among the source–receiver configurations. Perceptibility tended to increase at lower receiver heights and was particularly high when the sidewalk obstructed sound propagation paths. Discrimination generally increased with differences in sound pressure level, loudness and sharpness between the two conditions. Overall, the study indicates that a sidewalk can produce perceptually relevant changes in simulated road-traffic noise, particularly for sources close to the ground.

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