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Plaza de Colón: Gardens

The development of the monitoring system (SADMAM)

The solutions used to develop and operate the SADMAM provide a promising future for applying the latest technology for creating precise and reliable noise maps at low overall cost.

The SADMAM is based on the following principles:

The noise maps obtained by forecasting procedures fundamentally designed for noise from roads, railways, airports and industries, are not as exact as those obtained by direct measurement in consolidated areas of the city. There are many other sources of urban noise pollution which are currently impossible to model using forecasting methods: public behaviour in the streets, the concentration of activities, the existence of pedestrian crossings, bus stops, traffic lights, tunnels, etc, cannot be entered into these programs and are often determining factors for environmental sound levels in a specific area.
The City Council already has a noise map made using measurements and showing the noise reality in the city.
The City Council has permanent information on real environmental noise levels at 30 typical points in the city and a database that is permanently updated, with data from over 10 years.

Combining all of these rationally, it seemed possible to update the sound data map using direct measurements, dynamically.

During the design of the SADMAM, it was found that suitably equipped vehicles, computer applications to receive, handle and combine data and applications for sound calculations and information display were needed.

The vehicle needed to be able to move in an urban environment, that is, it had to be small, with low pollutant emission levels (including noise) and general properties, including aesthetic ones, matching the purposes of this service. The vehicle chosen was a 55 hp Smart Pure .

As well as the above equipment, the vehicles have a telescopic pneumatic mast, GPS locator/navigator, independent DC power, mobile telephone and camera.

Noise data are transferred by GSM cell phone from the vehicles to the centre where the data are processed.

Specific time and geographical location information for the data from the vehicles requires a computer application that can create a specific and independent database for consistently storing all the information from the vehicles over time.

The data from the SADMAM vehicles in the mobile station database stored in the monitoring system database, together with the municipal map and location data, are processed in the system's server and entered in the LIMA calculation program to provide noise maps of the area under study.

The first results clearly show that the starting premises were correct and that work can continue along the same lines.

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