Effects of nocturnal railway noise on annoyance: Dose-response relationships from a field study in comparison to nocturnal aircraft noise annoyance

摘要

Traffic noise exposure during the night may disturb sleep and recreation inducing possible annoyance reactions of affected residents. Significant dose-response relationships between nocturnal aircraft noise and annoyance were confirmed, for instance, in a laboratory and a field study conducted by the DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine (Quehl & Basner 2006). A common finding of studies on annoyance comparing different traffic modes is that annoyance ratings increase in the order railway least, road, and aircraft most (Miedema & Oudshoorn 2001; Miedema & Vos 1998). Based on these dose-response relationships a railway bonus was adopted in several European countries. The low impact of railway noise, however, was challenged by current investigations leading to the recommendation that the "rail bonus issue" has to be studied further (Gjestland 2008). In a recent laboratory study the effects of different traffic noise sources were compared with respect to sleep disturbance and annoyance (Basner et al. 2008). Although sleep disturbance increased in the order air, road, and rail traffic, it was found that annoyance reactions due to railway and road noise were equal and strongest due to aircraft noise. Since the validity of laboratory findings has to be proved in field studies the current study investigated the effects of nocturnal railway noise on sleep and annoyance of residents living in the vicinity of railway tracks in Germany. The present paper is focusing on annoyance and aims to compare the findings to the results of our field study on aircraft noise annoyance (Quehl & Basner 2006) providing a ranking of the two traffic modes with regard to night time noise annoyance.