Short-Term Annoyance Due to Night-Time Road, Railway, and Air Traffic Noise: Role of the Noise Source, the Acoustical Metric, and Non-Acoustical Factors

Sarah Weidenfeld, Sandra Sanok, Rolf Fimmers, Marie-Therese Puth, Daniel Aeschbach and Eva-Maria Elmenhorst
Additional contact information
Sarah Weidenfeld: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Aerospace Medicine, 51170 Cologne, Germany
Sandra Sanok: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Aerospace Medicine, 51170 Cologne, Germany
Rolf Fimmers: Department of Medical Biometry, Informatics and Epidemiology (IMBIE), Faculty of Medicine, University of Bonn, 53127 Bonn, Germany
Marie-Therese Puth: Department of Medical Biometry, Informatics and Epidemiology (IMBIE), Faculty of Medicine, University of Bonn, 53127 Bonn, Germany
Daniel Aeschbach: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Aerospace Medicine, 51170 Cologne, Germany
Eva-Maria Elmenhorst: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Aerospace Medicine, 51170 Cologne, Germany

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 9, 1-17

Abstract: Field studies on traffic noise-induced annoyance have predominantly used estimated outside noise levels. We intended to complement existing knowledge with exposure–response relationships that are based on precise indoor noise measurements. Acoustic recordings inside the bedrooms of nightly road traffic and annoyance ratings in the following morning were obtained from 40 suburban residents (mean age 29.1 years ± 11.7; 26 females). We derived exposure–response functions for the probability to be “annoyed at least a little” ( %LA ). Further analyses compared data from the current study with those from two earlier studies on railway and aircraft noise. Annoyance increased with the number of traffic events and the equivalent sound pressure level. The inclusion of non-acoustical factors (such as assessment of road transport) improved the prediction considerably. When comparing the different traffic noise sources, %LA was higher for road than for air traffic at a given L Aeq,night , but higher for road and railway than for air traffic at a given number of noise events. Acoustical as well as non-acoustical factors impact short-term annoyance induced by road, railway, and air traffic. Annoyance varies across noise sources, which may be due to differences in acoustical characteristics or in the temporal noise distribution throughout the night.

Keywords: road traffic noise; railway noise; aircraft noise; annoyance; L Aeq; number of events; field study; exposure–response curve (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4647/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4647/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:9:p:4647-:d:544509

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().