A test campaign in 4 different sites was developed in the city of Athens for an outdoor assessment of the annoyance of the people from road traffic, and specifically PTW (mopeds, scooters, motorbikes) traffic. The four sites were ranging an Leq between 50 and 80 dB (A), thus were representing a quiet area against very noisy area. In all cases pedestrians were interviewed, experiencing the annoyance of the passing by cars and motorbikes. A still unanswered question is if, when and why the PTW are considered more annoying than the cars. At a first look, by having asked about 200 pedestrians their opinion regarding the PTW (about 20 % of the vehicles pass-by in Athens roads are PTW), if the percentage of annoyed pedestrians by general road traffic leading to an Leq among 55 and 65 dB (A) is 71 %, 82 % is the percentage annoyed by scooters and motorbikes specifically.

Current identification of hot spots in noise maps is based on façade levels and does not include possible beneficial effects of a nearby quiet outdoor environment. To enable an evaluation of noise in the outdoor environment, a noise rating model is developed in which indicators for outdoor noise are combined with information about the function of the area and the number of people making use of the area to predict the overall annoyance response. The model will be tested by investigating the effect of noise in the outdoor urban environment in subjects residing and walking in a realistic situation.