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Noise and vibration measurements were conducted on eight light vehicles ranging from small compact passenger cars to a large sport utility vehicle on and off shoulder rumble strips of two different designs to assess the input to a vehicle operator when the vehicle departed from the travel lane. The first design was a more conventional design, consisting of cylindrical indentions ground into the pavement at regular 30 cm intervals, and a continuous sinusoidal profile with a peak-to-peak length of 36 cm. Triaxial vibration measurements were made at six locations, including the steering wheel and column, the seat cushion and track, and the front and rear spindles. Interior noise was measured at six locations, one at the operator’s outward ear and five at the front seat passenger (three in the fore/aft locations of the seat and at outboard and inboard ear locations). In addition to the in/on vehicle measurements, pass-by noise levels were made.

Acoustic beamforming was used to localize noise sources on heavy trucks operating on highways in California and North Carolina at a total of 20 sites. Over 1,200 trucks were measured under a variety of operating conditions, including cruise on level highways, on upgrades, down degrades, low speed acceleration, and for various speeds and pavements. The contours produced by the beamforming measurements were used to identify specific source contributions under these conditions and for a variety of heavy trucks. Consistently, the highest noise levels were seen at the tire-pavement interface, with lesser additional noise radiated from the engine compartment. Noise from elevated exhaust stacks was only documented for less than 5% of the trucks measured. The results were further reduced to produce vertical profiles of noise levels versus height above the roadway. The profiles were normalized to the highest noise level at ground level.