Page 13 - iAV Edition #489

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
London’s Electric Buses Are Getting Fake Noise, And It’s Positively Psychedelic
By Jon Porter
From next year, some of London’s electric buses will play artificial noise while travel- ing at low speeds, and the specific sound that’s been created for them is an ambient treat for the ears. The noise was created by Zelig Sound, which has been working with Transport for London on the audio over the past year.
The sound is being introduced in response to
a new EU
law which stipu- lates that all elec- tric vehicles will eventually need to produce artifi- cial noise while traveling at low speeds, to make up for the lack of
noise from their internal engines. If you can’t hear a vehicle, then you’re not as aware of its pres- ence, and research sug- gests pedestrians are more likely to be hit by electric or hybrid cars as a result.
Wired reports the base note is a soft F#maj7 chord, with a slight pulsing
sound in the background. This is what gets played when a bus is stationary.
Then, when the bus starts mov- ing, the chord is joined by a C sharp every three beats to indicate motion.
In the EU, regula- tions mean that cars will need to play a sound that’s 56 dB in
volume when traveling at less than 20 km/h (12.4 mph) — any faster and a com- bination of tire and wind noise makes up for the lack of engine noise.
Since the artificial sound doesn’t have to be retro- fitted into older electric cars until 2021, London’s transport authority is introducing the
new bus sounds gradually. The capital’s 100 route will get the new sounds for six months starting in January, before it expands to the C10 and P5 routes later in the year. Its introduc- tion follows field trials in Tottenham, where its effectiveness has been tested with real world pedestrians. Organizations
representing peo- ple with visual impairments, cycling, and envi- ronmental groups were also consult- ed during its cre- ation.
Of course, the real question now is not how the track sounds in isolation, but how it comes across when multiple electric buses are jockeying for space on London’s busy streets. Only 200 of London’s roughly 8,000 iconic red buses are currently elec- tric, but that num- ber is only going to increase as more of the capi- tal’s combustion- engine-equipped vehicles reach the end of their lives.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine