Combined road traffic, railway and aircraft noise sources: Total noise annoyance model appraisal from field data

Abstract

Appraisal of environmental noise effects on health considers single noise exposure. In large cities, noise exposure is frequently due to multiple sources. Their combination, interaction or successive presence is known to affect people’s health. The prediction of their effects has been little studied and needs more investigation to address the problem. Studies dealing with annoyance due to combined noise sources proposed different total annoyance models. They were very rarely assessed using field annoyance data. The current work aims to assess them using data of annoyance due to different urban situations of two, and even three, combined transportation noise sources. The considered noises were from road, railway and aircraft traffic. Assessment of ten classical total annoyance models highlighted relevant existing models to account for combined transportation noise annoyance in cities. Perceptual total annoyance models, based on annoyance due to each transportation noise source, better performed total annoyance calculation than psychophysical total annoyance models based on the Lden index. As the dominant source effect mainly explained total annoyance responses from the residents, the strongest component model led to a good calculation of mean total annoyance ratings. But perceptual models with an interaction term, such as the vector summation and mixed models, better explained total annoyance judgments from residents as they account for the contribution of each combined noise source and their interaction. The perceptual linear regression model was also interesting as it accounted for the contribution of each combined noise source, and might be used for more than two combined noise sources. Those perceptual models accounted well for the resident feeling towards the different combined noise sources. These results might contribute to the endeavor aiming at filling the lack of consensus among the scientific community and the corresponding lack of regulations.