On the association between noise exposure and annoyance for road and rail traffic noise

Abstract

There have been a number of small projects in the Oslo area attempting to determine how annoyance relates to noise exposure. There are several possible ways to measure annoyance, some of them are quantitative and some are qualitative. Noise exposure can be measured or calculated with acceptable accuracy in a given position. But it is still uncertain how the evaluation should be performed, as both outdoor and indoor levels should be taken into account. The subjective evaluation of noise immission for an exposed person also depends on other factors beside the physical noise. We will, however, claim that noise is a reasonable proxy for the total environmental exposure for a resident. It would also seem that a subjective evaluation requires grounding in objective facts in order to be useful. There are many possible reasons for a large variation between persons in the perceived annoyance due to the same noise exposure. We suggest a simple model with a wide range of uncertainty as a possible predictor of perceived annoyance within a given neighbourhood.