Demographic and attitudinal factors that modify annoyance from transportation noise

TLDR

The study investigates how demographic variables and attitudinal factors such as noise sensitivity and fear influence annoyance from transportation noise. The analysis uses data from 15,000 to 42,000 cases drawn from prior field surveys on transportation noise exposure. Fear and noise sensitivity markedly increase annoyance (up to 19 dB and 11 dB respectively), while demographic factors are largely negligible, with age adding only about 5 dB and other variables contributing 1–3 dB.

Abstract

The effect of demographic variables (sex, age, education level, occupational status, size of household, homeownership, dependency on the noise source, and use of the noise source) and two attitudinal variables (noise sensitivity and fear of the noise source) on noise annoyance is investigated. It is found that fear and noise sensitivity have a large impact on annoyance (DNL equivalent equal to [at most] 19 and 11 dB, respectively). Demographic factors are much less important. Noise annoyance is not related to gender, but age has an effect (DNL equivalent equal to 5 dB). The effects of the other demographic factors on noise annoyance are (very) small, i.e., the equivalent DNL difference is equal to 1–2 dB, and, in the case of dependency, 3 dB. The results are based on analyses of the original data from various previous field surveys of response to noise from transportation sources (number of cases depending on the variable between 15 000 and 42 000).