A "Catalog" Of New York City Noises Being Built to Help Fight Noise Pollution

Image credit: PixabayDubbed one of the loudest cities in the world, New York City is participating in an experiment to both reduce volume and address the issue of noise pollution using machine learning technology.

Researchers from New York University (NYU), in collaboration with city residents and city hall, are embarking on a five-year, $4.6 million project using machine learning and sensors to construct a “sound library.”

The sound library will be built from a collection of recorded noises that work together to earn New York City the moniker “The City That Never Sleeps.”

Machines, using artificial intelligence (AI), will eventually be able to automatically identify each of the sounds from the sound library.

"It is like living in the middle of a soccer stadium sometimes," says Gregory Orr, a filmmaker from Los Angeles who has lived in New York for 19 years.

"Even the squirrels have to chirp louder in the city in order to be heard over the din," he jokes.

Juan Bello, head of the "Sounds of NYC" project and associate professor of music technology at NYU, says noise is "consistently the number one civil complaint" to 311 (the city's telephone hotline for non-emergency services).

Currently installed on NYU buildings in Greenwich Village, researchers are also installing sensors across Manhattan and Brooklyn to help in the collection of recorded sounds.

Researchers hope that the sensors will help index the thousands of expected sounds collected, helping computers to narrow down nuisance sounds, ultimately turning that information over to city officials to take action if possible.

According to researchers, one cause of the noise issue in New York City, in particular, has to do with the skyscrapers. The skyscrapers create “canyons of sound,” according to Bello.

"A lot of the sounds that you get in New York would not be so loud in other places, because of the specifics of the topology of the city," said Bello.

Researchers expect to have 100 sensors in place across Manhattan and Brooklyn by the end of the year.