Differences in the human response to freight and passenger railway vibration in residential environments

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to quantify and investigate differences in the human response to freight and passenger railway environmental vibration. Data for this research comes from a field study comprising interviews with respondents and measurements of their vibration exposure (N = 752). A logistic regression model has been developed to classify measured railway vibration signals in the field study as freight or passenger signals, with a classification accuracy of 96%. Exposure-response relationships for annoyance due to exposure to freight and passenger railway vibration are then determined using an ordinal probit model with fixed thresholds. These exposure response relationships indicate that the annoyance response for exposure to freight railway vibration is significantly higher than that for passenger railway vibration. In terms of a community tolerance level, the population studied is 15 dB (re 10−6 m s−2) more tolerant to passenger railway vibration than freight railway vibration. The potential reasons for this difference in the human response are investigated and discussed. Some of the factors that are investigated include time of day effects, sleep disturbance, effects of combined noise and vibration and the effects of social, attitudinal, and demographic factors.