Night noise guidelines for Europe - WHO/Europe - World Health ...

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EFFECTS ON HEALTH
for aircraft:
%HSD = 18.147 – 0.956*L night + 0.01482*(L night ) 2 [12]
%SD = 13.714 – 0.807*L night + 0.01555*(L night ) 2 [13]
%LSD = 4.465 – 0.411*L night + 0.01395*(L night ) 2 [14]
and for railways:
%HSD = 11.3 – 0.55*L night + 0.00759*(L night ) 2 [15]
%SD = 12.5 – 0.66*L night + 0.01121*(L night ) 2 [16]
%LSD = 4.7 – 0.31*L night + 0.01125*(L night ) 2 [17].
The above relations represent the current best estimates of the influences of L night on
self-reported sleep disturbance for road traffic noise and for railway noise, when no
other factors are taken into account. Fig. 4.1 illustrates the relations [9] [12] and
[15] for persons highly disturbed by road, aircraft and rail noise.
Fig. 4.1
High sleep disturbance by
noise at night
Source:
European Commission, 2004.
% highly disturbed
25
20
15
10
5
Air traffic
Road traffic
Rail traffic
0
40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70
Lnight, outside, facade
With regard to the relations for aircraft noise it should be noted that the variance in
the responses is large compared to the variance found for rail and road traffic. This
means that the uncertainty regarding the responses for night-time aircraft noise is
large, and such responses can be considered as indicative only. Miedema (2003) suggests
the following causes.
• The time pattern of noise exposures around different airports varies considerably
due to specific night-time regulations.
• The sleep disturbance questions for aircraft noise show a large variation.
• The most recent studies show the highest self-reported sleep disturbance at the
same L night level. This suggests a time trend.
For industrial noise there is an almost complete lack of information, although there
are some indications (Vos, 2003) that impulse noise may cause considerable disturbance
at night.
NIGHT NOISE GUIDELINES FOR EUROPE