The Daily Telegraph article referred to in Greg's post states that <For every increase of 10dB there is a doubling of sound intensity>.
Perhaps it might have been helpful if the author of the Daily Telegraph article had aquainted him/herself with decibels and their relationship to sound pressure intensity. The article should have said that "For every increase of 3dB there is a doubling of sound intensity".
If indeed the difference in sound pressure between George St (modern low floor buses) and Market St (light rail) is 19.1dB then the difference in sound pressure between the two locations is more than 60 times.
But as Greg said, your own ears will tell you what's loud, or too loud.
Good luck with the new low-noise buses.
Roger Greenwood
----- Original Message -----
From: Greg
To:TramsDownUnder@...
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 3:30 PM
Subject: [TramsDownUnder] Re: Sydney - Pedestrians exposed to noises equivalent to power tools
It would appear that you are not from Sydney. You don't have to use super sensitive instruments to tell that downtown Sydney with its bus congestion is a far more noisy and pedestrian unfriendly place than the Melbourne CBD.. A Mark 1 human ear is more than sufficient.
This is actually a very useful article if you are interested in comparisons between bus noise and tram noise. Check out the decibel (db) readings as shown in the article photos for George and Market Streets with a (relatively modern)low floor bus 91.8 db and the 72.7 db reading for the light rail at George and Hay Streets(this is in the hard copy version but not the internet version). As the article says "For every 10 db, there is a doubling of sound intensity."
Then of course there is the exhaust pollution and heat discharge coming from the "new low pollution" buses which are complete with advertisements which carry the spin that they are "green" but are anything but.
This is a page 5 article that the "bus boosters" will not like but will not be able to disprove.
Greg
--- InTramsDownUnder@..., "tenshodman" <brasstrain@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- InTramsDownUnder@..., Greg Sutherland <gregsutherland@> wrote:
> >
> > http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-news/sydney-pedestrians-are-being-exposed-to-noises-equivalent-to-power-tools-being-used-near-us-every-few-seconds/story-fnb5f12x-1226406989314
> >
>
> Another no news day for the Terrorgraph
>