Abstract
The environment, at the planetary level, comforts itself more and more with the phenomenon of pollution to which road activity belongs, as well. Phonic pollution in the urban environment, generated by road activity, although not a violent one ( 65-90 dBA) is permanent and omnipresent in all the compartments of the social-economic life and occurs within the whole acoustic range, i.e. 16 Hz – 20kHz. The need to ensure high mobility supposes the use of a large number and a large diversity of transport means, which form, as a whole, one of the most important sources of the environment sound pollution. The transportation facilities that participate at the road service, the railroad traffic, and the air traffic are important sources of noise and vibrations. The noise and vibrations generated by them are extremely harmful both for travelers and drivers, and for the environment (residential areas, schools, hospitals, cultural institutions, etc).The town of Timişoara, an important social-economic centre in the western part of Romania, shows a plurality of problems that are specific to sound pollution generated by the road service, the railroad traffic, and the air traffic. This paper proposes to evaluate the level of the phonic pollution of the main thoroughfares (traffic networks) in the town of Timisoara, as well as to establish the ways of intensifying the efforts to fight pollution by revaluing the place of the motor vehicle in the urban environment, the quality of man’s life and health.
Key words: discomfort index , noise levels, sound pollution, urban traffic