The measurements of crowd noise in a large waiting hall of ShenYang Station in China

This study aims to explore the characteristics and distribution of crowd noise in large space and on-site measurements of crowd noise were conducted in the waiting hall in the ShenYang Railway Station, which is the largest station in Northeast China. Photos and videos were also recorded to obtain the number and the status of the passengers. The results showed that the A-weighted crowd noise in ShenYang station was between 55dB and 80dB and the number of passengers was between 2,000 and 3,000 at peak hours. Although passengers rarely talked, it was found that both the noise level and number of passengers fluctuated rapidly in time domain, and there was a strong linear correlation between the crowd noise level and the number of passengers. The spatial distribution of crowd noise was relatively uniform at peak hours, and the crowd noise in the seating area on both sides was slightly higher than that in the central traffic area in other hours. This study is helpful for the noise control and acoustic design in the extra-large space with large crowd.