This study aims to evaluate noise exposure and prevalence of hearing loss among typical road construction workers. Personal noise dosimeter was used to obtain the noise exposure profile of heavy equipment operators that are working on various stages; road work, trade work and pavement work. Symptoms of hearing loss among workers were observed through interview session. It was a degradation in human hearing ability. Workers with symptoms of hearing loss may have problem in understanding speech or conversation. There are 73 construction workers that were evaluated, 60 of them are machine’s operators, 7 are site supervisors and 6 are premix workers. The results show that in road works stage there are 6.9% workers exposed to action level ≥85 dBA and 1.4% workers exposed to noise ≥90 dBA. 4.1% workers from trade work and 13.7% workers from pavement work were exposed to noise ≥85 dBA. There are 5.48% of workers from pavement work exposed to hazard level of noise with only 2.74% of worker used Hearing Protection Devices (HPD). There is a prevalence of symptoms of hearing loss among workers with 45% of workers from road works, 32% from trade works and 23% from pavement stage. These exposed workers suggested to have an audiometric testing program annually in order to identify deterioration in their hearing ability as early as possible.

Strategic noise mapping provides important information for noise impact assessment and noise abatement. However, producing reliable strategic noise mapping in a dynamic, complex working environment is difficult. This study proposes the implementation of the random walk approach as a new stochastic technique to simulate noise mapping and to predict the noise exposure level in a workplace. A stochastic simulation framework and software, namely RW-eNMS, were developed to facilitate the random walk approach in noise mapping prediction. This framework considers the randomness and complexity of machinery operation and noise emission levels. Also, it assesses the impact of noise on the workers and the surrounding environment. For data validation, three case studies were conducted to check the accuracy of the prediction data and to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of this approach. The results showed high accuracy of prediction results together with a majority of absolute differences of less than 2 dBA; also, the predicted noise doses were mostly in the range of measurement. Therefore, the random walk approach was effective in dealing with environmental noises. It could predict strategic noise mapping to facilitate noise monitoring and noise control in the workplaces.

Environmental noise problems have increased every year and have brought negative effects to the neighbouring communities. Educational areas, such as university, college and school, are the places for learning and gaining knowledge. However, students feel stressed and annoyed when they are exposed to noisy environments. The main objective of this research is to investigate the current environmental noise problem in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). It is a preliminary study of environmental noise problem and a total of 24 measurement locations were selected based on the working zones in UTM. Each location was measured in an hour during the working period. About 95.8 percent of the measurement results exceeded the permissible limit of the guideline by the Department of Environment (DOE). Besides, the UTM noise zones have been established by referring to the measurement results. The findings of this study could assist the UTM management in deciding the noise abatement strategy. Also, the noise zones could be disseminated to the public in order to increase the public awareness towards the environmental noise problems in UTM.

Many occupational noise exposure studies have been conducted in various occupational sectors. However, in Malaysia, there are limited numbers of study on grass cutter workers and there is no study on leaf blower workers. Thus, this preliminary study was conducted to assess both occupational noise exposure among leaf blower and grass cutter workers by measuring occupational noise exposure, determining sound power level of the machines and conducting interview session. A total of 20 workers were selected from a public university as study subjects. Noise dosimeter and sound level meter were used to measure the occupational noise exposure and sound pressure level of all machines in determining their sound power levels respectively. Most of the workers were exposed to daily noise dose and time-weighted average (TWA) noise level which exceed the permissible limits. All machines recorded a high sound power level and several workers showed prevalence symptoms of hearing loss. This preliminary study revealed that most of the workers are exposed to excessive occupational noise exposure and at high risk of acquiring noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL).

Construction activities generate construction noise may cause noise annoyance among the public residents. The aim of this study is to investigate the noise annoyance level due to the sound pressure levels and the distances from the construction sites. Three public resident areas around Johor which located near to the construction sites have been selected. Two important indicators such as sound pressure levels and distances between the receiver and the noise sources were measured. 42 questionnaires were randomly distributed to the public residents who live near to the construction sites. The results showed that all respondent have different annoyance levels due to the construction noise. The sound pressure levels received by the public residents are increasing with the decreasing of the distance between the receiver and the noise sources. Thus, the relationship of noise annoyance levels is directly proportional to the sound pressure levels produced from construction sites. Meanwhile, the noise annoyance levels are decreasing with the increasing of the distances. As a conclusion, the public residents who live nearer to the construction sites suffered from a high noise annoyance level as expected.