DIFFERENCES IN THE ANNOYANCE BETWEEN RAIL AND ROAD TRAFFIC NOISE IN RELATION TO THE ACOUSTIC SITUATION

The legislation for traffic noise includes in many countries the difference in annoyance between rail and road traffic noise. In most of these countries the difference is expressed as a single value (i.e. in France 3 dB(A), in Germany 5 dB(A)). This value represents a mean average value of the difference between road and rail traffic noise as well as in various areas of disturbance and annoyance as in various acoustic situations. In a study carried out in Germany acoustic data (obtained by measurement and calculation) and disturbance reactions (obtained by questioning) were collected for 1,600 subjects. The influence of the acoustic situation on the evaluation of the annoyance differences between rail and road traffic noise will be shown. The variation in the acoustic situation shows for example different distances between the source specific sound level of rail and road traffic noise in the areas. For the covering abstract see ITRD E107776.