The acceptability of railway induced vibration in residential environments

Abstract

The aim of the study presented in this paper is to investigate the use of self-reported acceptability for assessing the human response to environmental vibration in residential environments. The human response to environmental stressors such as noise and vibration is often expressed in terms of exposure-response relationships that describe annoyance as a function of the magnitude of the vibration. These relationships are often the basis of noise and vibration policy and the setting of limit values. This paper takes a different approach by expressing exposure-response relationships for vibration in terms of self-reported acceptability. It is argued that exposure-response relationships expressing acceptability as a function of vibration exposure will complement existing relationships for annoyance in future policy decisions regarding environmental vibration. The results presented in this paper are derived from data collected through a large scale (N = 1431) socio-vibration survey conducted in the United Kingdom, the aim of which was to derive exposure-response relationships for vibration in residential environments. The sources of vibration considered are railways and construction.