The Evaluation of Noise Pollution from Railways

Abstract

Introduction: Railway traffic is one of the main sources of noise pollution in urban areas related with adverse effects on human health. We examined the noise levels from different types of rail transport according to the distance from the railway line and evaluated the number of exposed households. Methods: The measurements of noise level from the different types of trains (electric passenger, diesel passenger and diesel freight) were carried out in three places in Kaunas city, Lithuania. Noise levels from railways have been measured at a 10 and 40 meter distance from the railway line to identify the highest noise level of the homes closest to the railway. To determine the efficiency of noise barriers we measured sound level before and after the barrier. Brüel & Kjær 2250 portable sound level meter was used for noise measurements made with the A-weighting scale (dBA). In order to assess the number of households exposed to the highest level of noise geographic information system (GIS) was used to create a 10 and 40 meters buffer zone along the railway line. A spatial join was performed that allowed to append the attributes of households to the attributes of noise level. Results: The mean level of noise from electric passenger, diesel passenger and diesel freight trains at a distance of 10 meters from the railway line were 71 dBA, 74 dBA and 82 dBA. At a distance of 40 meters from the railway line the noise levels decreased and were 65 dBA, 68 dBA and 75 dBA, respectively. The results showed that the noise level from all types of trains was higher than 65 dBA. We found that 929 households were exposed to noise level greater than 65 dBA. The study showed that noise barriers significantly reduced the noise level from railways by 17 percent. Conclusions: The present study revealed that high number of households was exposed to high-level noise from railway traffic. The implementation of noise barriers would significantly reduce noise levels in residential areas.