A Method to Estimate Students’ Exposure to Road Traffic Noise Events

The traffic noise of 28 urban streets was monitored during the opening period of Italian schools. A method is described to estimate students’ exposure to noise from data made available on noise maps by the municipalities of metropolitan areas. The application of this method to the case study of Florence shows that almost 60% of students from municipal primary and lower secondary schools could be exposed to the maximum sound pressure level (SPL) inside the classroom greater than 55 dB(A) every hour, probably exceeding the typical background noise in classrooms by more than 10 dB.