Abstract—Traffic noise is always irritating to the people living along the road. High growth of vehicles and lack of public transport system is responsible for high traffic noise. The traffic noise standards are evolved in various countries as well as in India. It is observed in Delhi that the traffic noise levels at different categories of roads are above prescribed limit by Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), Govt. of India. In this paper, effort has been made to appreciate the traffic noise characteristics on Arterial and Collector Road in Delhi, India. Efforts are also made to review few research works carried out in India and abroad to understand the effects of traffic noise. International comparison of noise standards are also carried out in this paper.