K.H. Liasjo, T. Gjestland, I. Granoien

An extensive study on community reaction to aircraft noise was carried out in the vicinity of Oslo Airport Fomebu in the spring and summer 1989. More than 3,300 residents in 15 different communities were interviewed and noise measurements were conducted to verify aircraft noise calculations based on actual traffic in the periods prior to the interviews. A total of 16 annoyance variables were included in the questionnaire. This paper presents the response to different questions on annoyance. activity interference and behavioural reactions as a function of EFN, the Norwegian Aircraft Noise Index. For comparison with similar studies the EFN values in this report may be recalculated to DNL values by the simple formula: DNL = EFN - 1 [dBA] There is a steady increase in reactions with increasing noise levels around Fomebu. For noise levels above 45 EFN there is roughly a linear relationship with noise level for activity interference, behavioural reactions and all but two complaint actions. More people report speech interference than any other activity interference, and the rates of speech interterence increase more rapidly with increasing noise level than do any other reactions. Any changes in noise level have thus a greater impact on reports of speech interterence than on any other types of impact. At roughly 65 EFN aircraft noise is spontaneously mentioned as a local problem by half the exposed population. The interrelationships between the 16 annoyance variables can be represented by three factors of General Aircraft Noise Annoyance, Behavioural Modification, and Sleep Disturbance. An annoyance index has been established by combining the responses to four questions on general aircraft noise annoyance: "inside your home", "outside your home", "weekends spent at home", and "evenings spent at home". Operational changes at Fornebu caused a change in aircraft noise levels during the study period. Reactions before and after this change follow the same dose-response relationships if the noise levels one month prior to the interviews are used. The study areas were chosen to include different ambient noise levels. One hypothesis that was going to be tested in the study was that the reactions to aircraft noise are influenced by the ambient noise. The ambient noise levels were estimated using the volume of road traffic at each respondents address. This study fails to show a significant influence of ambient noise levels on the reaction to aircraft noise. Most of the respondents in this study were told that they participated in a survey about "neighbourhood conditions". A smaller subgroup. however. was instructed that the survey was about "aircraft noise". The study yields no conclusive evidence that the specific use of the words "aircraft noise" in the introduction of the survey, increases the reported negative reactions to this type of noise. The study areas were differently located relative to the normal flight paths. In some areas the noise was predominantly. caused by aircraft on a take-off flight path, some areas had predominantly landing noise. and some areas were not overflown. There is moderately strong evidence that there exists a flight path effect, and that residents in areas that lies directly underneath a flight path are more annoyed by aircraft noise at equal EFN levels. Residents that express that they consider the possibility of aircraft crashes are much more annoyed than others. The frequency of reported concern with crashes is strongly related to annoyance. Except for life-time residents, people that have lived in an area for a long period of time, are more annoyed by aircraft noise than newer residents. There is thus no support for the theory that people adapt to the noise over the years. People with aviation-related work and those flying more than I 0 times a year show less annoyance. This effect. however, is based on a small number of observations. Homeowners and residents in single dwellings are slightly more annoyed than others. The results seem to indicate that neither the weekends nor the evenings stand out as special problems in the existing noise environments around Fomebu when the EFN noise metric is used to evaluate noise exposure.

DGLR/AIAA 14th Aeroacoustics Conference, 1992

Conference Paper

englisch

21,0 x 29,7 cm, 8 Seiten

DGLR-Bericht, 1992, 1992-03, DGLR/AIAA 14th Aeroacoustics Conference - Proceedings; S.635-642; 1992; Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt - Lilienthal-Oberth e.V., Bonn

NA

aeroacoustics

Bibliothek

1992