An odd thing happens whenever I stay at the in-laws in inner Sydney. They live on a reasonably busy street on a bus route yet somehow I sleep better than I do in my regional home.

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Perhaps it's the electric buses that pass with a quiet whine instead of the angry roar of a diesel motor or the growing number of electric vehicles in this relatively affluent part of town. Whatever the reason, I'm more likely to be woken by traffic noise when I'm home, where EVs are the rare exception and diesel utes and old clunkers with modified exhausts and very loud sound systems rule the road.

If anything drags me from my slumber in this part of the city, it's the drunken caterwauling of revellers or, at 6am on the dot, the first passenger plane descending when the airport curfew is lifted.

This is not to say Sydney isn't incredibly loud. Just that this quiet corner isn't, which is a blessing given how close it is to the city centre. But some cities much bigger than Sydney are whisper-quiet in comparison. Tokyo is one of them.

It's one of the first things you notice in this megalopolis, which is home to 37 million people. Stepping out into Shinjuku early in the morning, there's barely a hint of traffic noise, just the distant clatter of trains passing on the multitude of lines threaded through the city.

Excellent public transport, restrictions on who can own cars - proving you have a place to park them off the road - and small vehicles designed for narrow streets all help reduce traffic noise. There's also Japanese manners, which means the horn is the device of last resort.

Beijing has also made great leaps forward in reducing traffic noise. China is the biggest adopter of EVs, with one of its brands, BYD, now eclipsing Tesla in terms of global sales.

It wasn't always this way.

During the COVID lockdown, the biggest complaint from residents trapped in their apartment blocks was traffic noise. Incessant honking of horns, noisy exhausts and road surfaces that amplified the din were the chief culprits. Strict noise compliance rules were imposed as the........

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