Speaker
Description
Urban streets are shaped not only by their physical form but also by their sensory environment, particularly sound. While previous research has focused on perceptual responses such as annoyance, less is known about how acoustic conditions relate to actual pedestrian behaviour in real-world settings. This study examines the relationship between traffic noise and walking behaviour using a non-intrusive observational approach on a London street. Using simultaneous binaural audio recording and video tracking, the research extracted psychoacoustic indicators—acoustic sharpness, a key metric reflecting the high-frequency spectral balance characteristic of urban traffic noise—to analyse its correlation with pedestrian walking speed. Results show that acoustic sharpness exhibits a significant, non-monotonic relationship with pedestrian movement. Specifically, walking speed increased at moderate levels of sharpness, followed by a decrease as the auditory stimulus reached higher, more "piercing" intensities. The magnitude of these behavioural modulations—ranging from 0.11 to 0.12 m/s—represents a quantifiable shift in the rhythmic use of public space. This suggests that sound acts as a subtle yet persistent regulator of the urban tempo, providing a new perspective for the development of more responsive and pedestrian-oriented urban spaces.