Analysis of the community responses to road traffic noise using structural equation modeling -comparison of the covariance structure models for different housing types-

Abstract

As for the situation of road traffic noise problems in Japan, the percentage of areas where achieve the environmental quality standards for road traffic noise tends to increase year by year. On the other hand, number of complains about road traffic noise has not been changed recent years. In order to determine the factors affecting annoyance due to road traffic noise, we analyzed how the annoyance was determined using the dataset derived from a social survey on community response. The social survey was conducted along arterial roads in 2019 and 2020. Total sample sizes were 360 and 228 in detached houses and apartments, respectively. Noise exposure was estimated based on the ASJ RTN-Model. We constructed a covariance structure model which represents the hierarchical structure from noise exposure to annoyance via activity disturbances and applied multiple-group analysis for structural equation modeling to the model. This paper focused on the difference in the direct and indirect impacts of noise exposure on annoyance between the detached houses and apartments. The analysis showed that the determination of annoyance which was affected by noise exposure via activity disturbances differed according to housing types.