[Article] The Impact of Soundscape on Pedestrian Comfort, Perception, and Walking Experience in Béjaïa, Algeria

What if the problem with our cities isn't noise... but the sounds we've chosen to keep?

For decades, urban acoustics has focused on one objective: reducing noise. But a growing body of research suggests that this is the wrong question. People do not experience cities in decibels. They experience cities through soundscapes.

A busy square filled with conversations may feel welcoming. A quiet street may feel unsafe. The sound of birds, water, or children playing can transform how we perceive comfort, safety, and even whether we choose to walk.

Our latest study, published in Acoustics, explores this shift by investigating how soundscapes influence pedestrian comfort, perception, and walking experience across the historic and modern districts of Béjaïa, Algeria. Using ISO 12913 soundscape methods, we combined objective acoustic measurements with soundwalks, sound diaries, mental maps, and perceptual analysis to understand how people actually experience urban environments.

Among our findings:

• Natural and social sounds consistently improved perceived comfort and walking experience.

• Traffic and mechanical sounds encouraged avoidance behaviors, even when measured sound levels alone could not fully explain people's perceptions.

• Visual quality and soundscape were strongly interconnected, confirming that cities are experienced through multiple senses rather than isolated environmental variables.

The implications extend well beyond one Algerian city.

As cities become denser, warmer, and increasingly designed around health and well-being, urban soundscape is emerging as a new design parameter alongside energy, daylight, thermal comfort, and air quality. The future of urban design is not simply quieter cities. It is cities that sound better.

Congratulations to Yacine Mansouri, Mohamed Elhadi Matallah, Abdelghani Attar, and Waqas Ahmed Mahar for this excellent collaboration.

A question for urban planners, architects, and acousticians:

If you could redesign your city based on the sounds people enjoy rather than the noise they tolerate, how different would it become?

📘 Full article: https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/336695

📚 Learn more about our research: https://www.sbd.uliege.be/

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