Interactive Soundscape Design Strategies for Rail Transit Spaces

Urban rail transit raises noise problems. Traditional noise barriers suffer from insufficient aesthetics and affect visual comfort. For multi-sensory enhancement, interactive evaluation is an effective tool. In this study, a soundscape design method using interactive evaluation and parametric design is proposed, where participants adjust the noise barrier parameters and natural sound masks to form a visual and auditory solution based on the real-time simulation results. A city park in Suzhou, China, which is highly affected by railroad noise, was selected. 25 participants were recruited to conduct interactive experiments in a VR environment. Questionnaires were used to investigate the audiovisual evaluation before and after the adjustment. The results show that the method can significantly improve subjects' overall comfort with visual and auditory environments, and when combined with the masking effect of natural sounds, it can further improve the degree of pleasantness and coordination. The method proposed in this study can provide designers with effective design strategies to improve audiovisual comfort of rail transit spaces. In future studies, machine learning based optimization algorithms could be used to investigate the automatic generation of the best sound barrier design options.