[HN Gopher] Quiet route planning for pedestrians in traffic nois...
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Quiet route planning for pedestrians in traffic noise polluted
environments
Author : ericdanielski
Score : 168 points
Date : 2020-07-27 17:29 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (k1z.blog.uni-heidelberg.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (k1z.blog.uni-heidelberg.de)
| userbinator wrote:
| I'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...
| idreyn wrote:
| I 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.
| boxcardavin wrote:
| Ebikers 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 wrote:
| Even better than just trying to detect it via ML, let it be a
| separate option to toggle.
| bdamm wrote:
| Still need ML to build the menu of paths.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Sure, but
|
| > to detect ebikers (easy to tell from speed vs road
| grade) and weight their routes more heavily in deciding
| the best route to recommend.
|
| seems like an anti-pattern that screws over people who
| don't have e-bikes.
|
| If users can tell us that they're using an e-bike and we
| give a separate option then both e-bikers and pedalers
| can have navigation options that work best for the
| specific use case, rather than shoehorning both into the
| same option.
|
| We need to stop assuming things using ML and pretend like
| that's somehow more user-friendly than the user directly
| telling us what they want. (See: constant griping about
| how poorly non-verbatim Google search is getting)
| matsemann wrote:
| Huh, I often find the opposite. If there's a nice bike path
| from A to B in an arc, Google often prefers a shorter path
| straight through a residential area. Which means multiple turns
| one has to memorize and also slow down for.
| dylan-m wrote:
| Strava 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.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Check out Komoot. Myself and many in the UK swear by it for
| bicycle route planning.
| ahelwer wrote:
| With 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.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| People 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 wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| Grab a megaphone with the siren sound effect and have some
| fun with them.
| MetalGuru wrote:
| Seriously! The worst! The South Park episode that makes fun
| of this group is hilarious.
| Ntrails wrote:
| Why are buskers allowed to bellow out whatever garbage They
| want through amplifiers which are just as loud and _to me_
| more obnoxious?
| hiharryhere wrote:
| Oh 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.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| Yeah, especially as we get about 1 "loud pipes" guy every
| half hour throughout the day where I live, I'd love to
| have Mr. Loud Pipes be regulated into oblivion.
|
| It's so bad that I'll be sitting inside with my SO having
| a conversation and we'll pause whatever we're saying for
| Mr. Loud Pipes, then when he's gone we can start talking
| again.
| bradlys wrote:
| Sounds like confirmation bias. I don't know if there is a
| higher noise ceiling than cars. I've seen plenty of people
| in cars rev their engines. And it's wildly common all over
| the USA... Civics with fart pipes, trucks rolling coal, v8s
| with a muffler delete, etc.
|
| Most motorcycles are built with an enthusiast in mind who
| wants a louder bike. Most cars aren't build with
| enthusiasts in mind.
|
| I'd love to know why we've allowed delivery vehicles and
| buses (commercial vehicles) to have similar noise
| regulations. Since those vehicles are really only for
| utility, one would assume we'd regulate those into
| quietness at least...
| clairity wrote:
| > "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_ wrote:
| Since 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 wrote:
| If you ban gas-powered scooters I don't think it would make
| much difference. The people who ride them won't care.
| voisin wrote:
| How about gas powered lawnmowers? Far more prevalent, awful
| for both sound and emissions.
| ip26 wrote:
| Lawn mowers at least have four-stroke engines instead of
| two. Although, as you say, vastly more prevalent.
| AmVess wrote:
| They are 4 stroke, but they put small mufflers on them.
| Electric lawnmowers make a lot of noise, too. Not as bad
| as the droning of a 4 stroke at full throttle, but still
| noisy.
|
| I long for the day we ban lawns. Do that, and lawn mowers
| and weed whackers would vanish overnight.
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| My neighbor started a new lawn. The amount of water he
| has been using during the last few weeks with this
| automated sprinkling system is staggering. There should
| be a more natural and robust solution, some mix of weeds
| and small flowers that's also walkable, but also gives
| bees and other insects a place to live.
| morsch wrote:
| Depends on where you are. Lawnmower density decreases as
| population density increases. Scooter density is the
| other way round.
|
| I'd ban them immediately. The noise and air pollution is
| insane. Have the government co-finance replacement
| electrical scooters if it helps.
| toxik wrote:
| Huh, I thought most of them were two stroke.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Not 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 wrote:
| I 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
| WWLink wrote:
| As obnoxious as they are, no. Leaf blowers are WAAAAY
| worse.
|
| I mean I do agree that gas lawn mowers are noisy
| obnoxious smokey things that blow dust around. But a leaf
| blower's whole purpose in life is to blow dirt around -
| and at full blast they're way louder than the loudest
| lawn mower.
|
| Plus the lawn mower takes like 10-30 minutes to mow a
| yard in most yards out here. Probably 15 if the person
| operating it is doing it quickly.
|
| Leaf blower though? I can see those jerks using those
| things for a good 45 minutes or so! Ugh.
| WillDaSilva wrote:
| Plus a clear replacement exists: electric lawnmowers.
| People may argue that they're not as good, but they're
| certainly good enough for almost every case.
| bdamm wrote:
| The upcoming battery powered models are getting pretty
| good. In some cases they have even more power than you
| can get from a gas motor, and of course the agility,
| quiet, and easy starting of an electric motor.
| upofadown wrote:
| My Yamaha 150 BWs gas powered scooter is 4 stroke and has a
| catalytic converter.
|
| Are 2 stroke scooters even a thing anymore?
| Tade0 wrote:
| They 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.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >>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 wrote:
| The 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.
| drivers99 wrote:
| Exact 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,...
|
| 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,...
|
| (There are also multi-use paths nearby as well but they are
| crowded lately under the circumstances. The parks are closed
| after dusk.)
| saagarjha wrote:
| When 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 wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| Genuine 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 wrote:
| Gordon 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-
| internatio...
| sib wrote:
| "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.
| cheschire wrote:
| I 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.
| Swizec wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| Interested in your experience here. Do you feel safe when,
| for example, crossing the street?
| Swizec wrote:
| Super 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.
| masklinn wrote:
| > 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.
| virgil_disgr4ce wrote:
| I 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.
| idreyn wrote:
| The "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 wrote:
| Nice. 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| That happens automatically once the codec switches to
| telephony - along with a quite significant difference in
| audio quality.
| scythe wrote:
| >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
| benrbray wrote:
| No need to wait -- a short stay in Tokyo was enough to
| convince me that daily life can be much better _right now_ if
| I leave the United States. I was scheduled to move
| permanently to Japan in May, but unfortunately the travel ban
| delayed my move.
|
| As a young person with few attachments, it was an easy
| decision to leave, especially given all that has happened the
| last few months.
|
| One to three decades is 1/8 to 1/2 of my life, if I'm lucky
| not to get hit by a car before then. Until the United States
| can catch up to the rest of the developed world, I'll be
| voting with my residence.
| leetcrew wrote:
| maybe 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.
| globular-toast wrote:
| When driven normally (or considerately) the engine noise of a
| petrol car is barely perceptible above the noise of the tyres
| on the road. EVs are heavier than petrol cars so will produce
| even more road noise. Also, in many places EVs will be
| required to produce an artificial sound in addition to the
| road noise.
|
| The thing with sound is our perceptible dynamic range is
| huge. If you live in a city you probably don't think regular
| car noise is that bad. That's because your noise floor is
| really, really high. When you're out in the countryside with
| no wind, a single car is the loudest thing for miles around.
| aitchnyu wrote:
| Seems 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.
| zby wrote:
| That depends on speed for sure.
| bradlys wrote:
| Above 20mph, you're mostly hearing tire noise as far as I
| can tell. And I'd say most driving is above 20.
|
| Most people kind of forget about tire noise when
| purchasing tires. I don't think most people put much
| thought in tires ever anyway.
| ponker wrote:
| I prefer loud cars. I've often been surprised by bad drivers
| driving Teslas while the bad drivers in ICE cars I hear
| approaching.
| lazyjones wrote:
| Modern gasoline cars are very quiet compared to motorcycles,
| buses, trucks.
|
| But they still get 100% of the hate...
| bdamm wrote:
| Well they're still much louder than an EV.
| lazyjones wrote:
| A bicycle is louder than a Tesla Model 3 at low speed, so
| that doesn't make it a pressing issue.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Leaf 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.
| viburnum wrote:
| This is nice but it would be better if people could enjoy their
| neighborhoods without having to think about noise and pollution.
| wiml wrote:
| Nice 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 wrote:
| frankly, 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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".
| nn3 wrote:
| Very 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 wrote:
| I'll be adding my observances of my commute to OpenStreetMap
| shortly. Thank you!
| mamurphy wrote:
| This reminds me of the recently-posted Trail Router[0] for
| jogging mapping.
|
| [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23802317
| supernova87a wrote:
| Of 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 wrote:
| In 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?
| onion2k wrote:
| It'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.
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