In noise control it is usual to take the (energy) equivalent sound level (Leq) as the most important variable. Most sound level meters can determine this value immediately. In fact they integrate p^2 (sound pressure squared) over time and divide by the total measured time.
If you have a series of samples of sound levels Lsi you can determine the energetic average (by adding all samples 10^(Lsi/10); dividing the sum by the number of samples) values and taking the 10log, multiply by 10.
In order to characterize the environmental noise in general and the traffic noise in particular, during diurnal reference time (6-22 hr) or nocturnal reference time (22-6 hr), relatively at preset time window, observation period, a single value of the equivalent continuous A-weighted sound pressure level LA,eq is used. This value is determined by integrating and averaging the squared A-weighted sound pressure of fluctuating noise during the measurement time interval, in which there are representative values of acoustic event pressure levels: so it is very important accurately to select the suitable integration time.