Greg Watts

Predicting Perceived Tranquillity in Urban Parks and Open Spaces

A method is described that enables the potential tranquillity of an amenity area, such as a park, green, or square to be assessed. The method involves the assessment of traffic noise levels and the measurement of the percentage of natural and contextual features using photographs of the scenes. Examples are taken from three amenity areas in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK. Using published noise maps, sampling was taken at points in the three parks where visitors were likely to be found and where noise levels were likely to be highest and lowest. At these locations, predictions of the traffic noise levels were made and then the tranquillity rating and the mean value and distribution of ratings were compared. Recommendations for improving the perceived tranquillity are discussed.

Procurement of Sustainable Noise-Reducing Devices: State-of-the-Art Review from EU Project QUIESST

There is a pressing need for the sustainability of noise-reducing devices (NRDs) for transport systems to be considered by procurement agencies, policy makers, and industry professionals/designers in order to be in line with a growing sustainable agenda for surface transport systems including the supporting infrastructure. This need has been recognized by the European Union (EU) and an appropriate research project has recently been commissioned. Quietening the Environment for a Sustainable Surface Transport (QUIESST) is a three-year project funded by the EU that began late in 2009. It is a multidisciplinary project undertaken by 13 EU partners from eight countries. Within the project, the University of Bradford is the specialist research team tasked with assessing the sustainability of noise-reducing devices. These devices are designed to control noise from surface transport (both road and rail) and include noise barriers and absorptive claddings. For the purpose of this research, sustainability was defined as: the optimal consideration of technical, environmental, economical, and social factors during the design, construction, maintenance and repair, and removal/demolition stages of NRD projects. A comprehensive literature review has been carried out of the relevant European standards, design guides used around the world by road and rail authorities, and existing research on NRDs conducted by academics and leading practitioners to identify sustainable practices and gaps in the knowledge base. It became evident that sustainability factors are not being fully considered across the whole life cycle of NRDs. At the present time and based on the available data, it is not possible to quantify and rank NRDs in terms of sustainability for a given site, project, or case study. Clearly this has major implications for the management of the procurement process. Further data collection and analysis are required to provide guidance that can be considered useful for all stakeholders. This is the aim of the further stages of this work package within the QUIESST project. This paper presents an overview of the current state of the art for the sustainability of NRDs, and describes some of the major deficiencies while highlighting knowledge gaps and the further research that is needed.

Tranquillity in the city - building resilience through identifying, designing, promoting and linking restorative outdoor environments

Tranquil spaces can be found and made in the city and their promotion and use by residents and visitors is an important means of building resilience. Studies have shown that spaces that are rated by visitors as tranquil are more likely to produce higher levels of relaxation and less anxiety that should ultimately result in health and well-being benefits. Such spaces can therefore be classed as restorative environments. Tranquil spaces are characterized by a soundscape dominated by natural sounds and low levels of man-made noise. In addition, the presence of vegetation and wild life has been shown to be an important contributory factor. Levels of rated tranquillity can be reliably predicted using a previously developed model TRAPT and then used to design and identify tranquil spaces, improve existing green spaces and develop Tranquillity Trails to encourage usage. Tranquillity Trails are walking routes that have been designed to enable residents and visitors to reflect and recover from stress while receivi...

A new tranquility rating tool and the role of audio and visual interactions.

Restorative environments which enable individuals to recover the sense of well‐being are becoming increasingly important. These environments are characterized by an enhanced level of tranquility. Therefore, obtaining the optimum balance between the landscape and soundscape characteristics and measuring the resultant tranquility of these spaces are essential for their design and maintenance. In order to understand the key factors which affect the tranquillity construct, a large volume of audio and visual data has been collected across a representative range of landscapes in the UK. These data have been analyzed objectively by studying the temporal and spectral characteristics of the recorded sounds and the proportion of the natural and contextual features present in the video clips. The tranquility rating of these landscapes has been obtained from subjective experiments on 44 subjects to whom uni‐ and bimodal stimuli have been presented in a separate experiment. The results of these experiments make possib...

Perceived tranquility in green urban open spaces

ABSTRACT Tranquility has a number of facets. Given the role that tranquility plays in societies, it is increasingly seen as an environmental indicator. Earlier, some have identified tranquility as contributing to health and wellbeing of individuals and the society, making it to be rooted in the context of sound natural ecosystems as a desirable environmental characteristic. Previous studies have identified tranquility places as having links to nature and natural features, wild landscapes, naturally behaving wildlife and natural sounds. The question of how tranquility can be evaluated and the perception of tranquility by visitors is a continuous recurrence. This study therefore selected seven green open spaces in Hong Kong in an attempt to answer these and other questions that are arising. Although results vary, it however provides a perspective on how people perceive tranquil spaces as part of their leisure and recreation indulgence, given rise to the concept of eco-leisure.

Examining factors contributing to tranquillity in the Scottish Highlands and Dartmoor National Park

The opportunity to experience tranquillity is what makes the countryside so different from cities for many visitors, and in a survey conducted by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [1], 58% of people questioned stated that for them tranquillity was the most positive feature of the countryside. It is therefore not surprising that within the UK Government’s Rural White Paper [2] that tranquillity features as an important element and the UK has recently recognized the importance of protecting tranquil spaces in the National Planning Policy Framework [3]. Previous studies into modelling tranquil space [4,5] led to the development of the following Tranquillity Rating Prediction Tool (TRAPT), which can be used to predict the Tranquillity Rating (TR) of both urban and natural environments. It is important because for the first time it is possible to quantify the importance of natural features in the visual scene and of man-made noise. A practical formulation of the relationship for rural landscapes: