Values of Traffic Noise from a Stated Preference-choice Experiment in Lisbon

摘要

The various adverse impacts of traffic noise on people in urban areas are in general associated with significant social costs that are external to the transport market. This fact affects economic efficiency, as prices of road transport do not reflect marginal social costs. Therefore, the valuation of the external costs of traffic noise is a critical issue in the transport policy arena. Other motivations for valuing noise are related with the need for evaluating the benefits of noise abatement policies, improvements in project appraisal and environmental impact assessment studies of transport infrastructures.As part of a research study, an integrated computer survey for valuing noise was developed, centered on stated preference-choice (SP) methods. This SP survey used a novel approach to represent noise levels to respondents, using householders’ experienced impacts and perception of noise (quiet) when indoors, and respondents’ familiarity with flats in the same block or lot. In this paper the values of noise that were estimated using multinomial and mixed logit models are presented, both using the units of perceived noise (quiet) and the real physical noise measure (Leq dB(A)). The issue of convergent validity of noise values’ estimates is addressed.