Vibration in dwellings from road and rail traffic — Part II: exposure-effect relationships based on ordinal logit and logistic regression models

The 1998 Norwegian Socio-vibrational Survey with 1503 respondents from 14 study areas was undertaken in the autumns of 1997 and 1998. Telephone interviews were used for obtaining people's reactions to vibrations in dwellings while in-dwelling vibration values were calculated for 1427 of these respondents. The response rate was 50%. The calculations of the vibration values were based on measurements and calculations by using a semi-empirical vibration prediction model. The logarithmic transformation of the calculated statistical maximum vibration value v_w,95 as defined in the new Norwegian Standard NS 8176, was selected as exposure measure. There were no significant differences in reactions to vibrations from different sources. An estimated exposure-effect ordinal logit model for degrees of annoyance as a function of the vibration exposure measure shows good fit and narrow statistical error bands. Further studies are needed to determine whether the exposure measure should also include the number and duration of vibration events.     

Railway noise and vibration annoyance in residential areas

This paper summarizes the results from the 1975 British railway noise study. Noise from railways does cause annoyance and interfere with activities. People in Great Britain appear to find high levels of railway noise to be somewhat less annoying than high levels from other sources. L_eq is as closely related to annoyance as any other index examined. Since annoyance increases steadily with noise level there is no particular “acceptable” railway noise level. Overhead electrified routes appear to be less annoying than diesel routes at the same noise levels. Through train noise, maintenance noise and vibration are the most widely noticed problems associated with railways in residential areas.     

The relationship between railway noise and community annoyance in Korea

A study of community annoyance caused by exposures to railway noise was carried out in 18 areas along railway lines to accumulate social survey data and assess the relationship between railway noise levels and annoyance responses in Korea. Railway noise levels were measured with portable sound-level meters. Social surveys were administered to people living within 50 m of noise measurement sites. A questionnaire contained demographic factors, degree of noise annoyance, interference with daily activities, and health-related symptoms. The question relating to noise annoyance was answered on an 11-point numerical scale. The randomly selected respondents, who were aged between 18 to 70 years of age, completed the questionnaire independently. In total, 726 respondents participated in social surveys. Taking into consideration the urban structure and layout of the residential areas of Korea, Japan, and Europe, one can assume that the annoyance responses caused by the railway noise in this study will be similar to those found in Japan, which are considerably more severe than those found in European countries. This study showed that one of the most important factors contributing to the difference in the annoyance responses between Korea and Europe is the distance between railways and houses.     

Are adverse impacts of neighbourhood noisy areas the flip side of quiet area benefits?

Soundscape researchers have studied how localized areas of noise and quiet within a neighbourhood have an effect upon residential noise annoyance. In this paper, noisy and quiet areas are studied simultaneously using data from three surveys and a noise mapping effort for Oslo. Results indicate that noisy neighbourhoods have the potential to increase residential noise annoyance primarily for apartments exposed to low residential noise levels whereas quiet neighbourhood areas have the potential to reduce noise annoyance the most at intermediate and high residential noise levels. Adverse neighbourhood soundscapes are shown to increase residential noise annoyance also after adjusting for possible absence of quiet areas. Whereas Swedish research results document benefits of living in an apartment having access to a quiet facade, no beneficial impacts of quiet neighbourhood areas were found. Results indicate that adjustment factors for apartment having quiet façades and/or adverse soundscapes respectively, can be independently applied.     

Operational and geological parameters in the assessing blast induced airblast-overpressure in quarries

Airblast disturbances, like ground vibrations, are undesirable by-products of blasting. Airblast damage and annoyance are directly related to factors such as blast design, weather and terrain conditions, and human response. But, unlike blast induced ground vibrations, airblast impacts the structures through the roof, walls and windows leading to human annoyance. Because any structure rumbling and rattling, including blast induced vibrations can fuel the fear of people. The experiences on airblast-overpressure (AOp) measurements show that it is sometime impracticable to set a maximum AOp limit, with or without allowed appropriate percentile of exceedances, because of the significance and unpredictability of variable geological conditions and the restrictive character of this kind of limitations in blasting practice. We therefore utilized the method of modified scaled distances (SDs) based on empirical equations considering such factors as blasting parameters and geological parameters of rock mass for bench blasting in quarries. The aim of this application was to get an environmentally friendly and technically practicable results by using site specific SDs instead of conservative SD values. This method was realized in a quarry in Istanbul with numerous experimental shots. In these experiments, the levels of airblast-overpressures were investigated as a function of variable conditions. The results show that the performances of these estimations are governed by the site-specific character of these empirical relations.     

Annoyance due to railway vibration at different times of the day

The time of day when vibration occurs is considered as a factor influencing the human response to vibration. The aim of the present paper is to identify the times of day during which railway vibration causes the greatest annoyance, to measure the differences between annoyance responses for different time periods and to obtain estimates of the time of day penalties. This was achieved using data from case studies comprised of face-to-face interviews and internal vibration measurements (N=755). Results indicate that vibration annoyance differs with time of day and that separate time of day weights can be applied when considering exposure-response relationships from railway vibration in residential environments.     

Community response to blasting

Annoyance due to chronic exposure to blast noise and vibration was assessed in residential areas near two surface mines and a quarry. It was found possible to base useful prediction of the prevalence of high annoyance on a metric of outdoor ground vibration related to high centiles of the long term distribution of exposure levels.     

Bound formula for determining the fundamental frequency

The extent of interference with various activities was studied among populations in areas exposed to noise from aircraft, road traffic, trains and tramways. When areas with differences in the extent of general annoyance were compared, similar differences in the extent of the various activity interferences were found, except for those due to vibrations. As an example of the differences in the activity interference pattern, it was found that road traffic noise interfered significantly less with speech than train noise, whereas both noise types caused roughly the same interference with rest/sleep. The results suggest that uniform weighted annoyance scores incorporating various kinds of activity interference are not valid for all types of environmental noises. Interference due to vibrations probably has to be treated separately from that due to noise.     

Vibration in dwellings from road and rail traffic — Part III: towards a common methodology for socio-vibrational surveys

While a range of international standards defining noise, vibration and other physical environmental measures have been established, common methodologies for measuring people's reactions to these same environmental effects are still in their infancy. This reduces the comparability of prevalence statistics and exposure-effect relationships developed by different researchers. The public authorities are served incompatible or seemingly conflicting information from different surveys when deciding on appropriate guidelines and limits. Drawing on experiences with the 1998 Norwegian Socio-vibrational Survey and a Swedish socio-acoustic survey supplemented with vibration measures, a new Nordtest Method: NT ACOU 106 Acoustics—Assessment of annoyance by vibrations in dwellings from road and rail traffic has been defined. The method describes sampling requirements, and proposes a mandatory verbal 5-point categorical annoyance scale and an optional 11-point numerical annoyance scale, both with lower anchoring point “Do not notice”. A survey data output format is specified to allow researchers to pool data from different surveys.     

COMPARISON OF COMMUNITY RESPONSE TO ROAD TRAFFIC NOISE IN JAPAN AND SWEDEN—PART I: OUTLINE OF SURVEYS AND DOSE-RESPONSE RELATIONSHIPS

To investigate cross-cultural differences in the community response to road traffic noise, social surveys were conducted in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Kumamoto and Sapporo, Japan, using the same questionnaire and noise measurement method. Typical residential areas with detached houses and apartments were selected as the target areas in each city. The questionnaire comprised 40 questions relating to environmental, housing and personal factors. The key questions concerned annoyance caused by road traffic noise. The total numbers of respondents were 1142 in Gothenburg, 837 in Kumamoto and 780 in Sapporo. The response rates were 68·8, 69·3 and 57·5% respectively. After the questionnaires were completed, noise measurements were made in each area. Community responses were compared on the basis of the dose-response relationships. There were no systematic differences between community responses in Sapporo and Kumamoto, which have the same culture. People living in detached houses in Gothenburg were more annoyed by the same road traffic noise than the people living in Japanese cities. There were no systematic differences among the three cities with regard to activity disturbances indoors, but significant disturbance of activities and resting in gardens or on balconies was noted in Gothenburg. The difference in activity disturbance was due to the differences between lifestyles in the two countries. People living in detached houses were more annoyed by the house vibration caused by road traffic than those living in apartments and people were annoyed by the exhaust from road traffic to the same extent as noise.