Update of an alternative analysis of sleep awakening data

Airport and airspace planners need a reliable method for quantifying the effects of nighttime operations on communities. Research has shown that cumulative metrics such as Lnight, Ldn and Lden show little or no correlation with aircraft noise event (ANE) produced awakenings. What is needed is a reliable method for quantifying the likely awakenings that will result from a full night of aircraft operations. This paper reports the results of an update of the analysis reported previously in Noise Control Engineering, 55(2). The objective of this present analysis is to refine the awakening dose-response relationships to be broadly applicable across airports and communities and it does that by adding European awakening data from Schiphol to the original data from three U.S. airports. It derives new regression coefficients and then tests two aspects of the results: whether the populations around the four airports are significantly different in their probability of awakening; whether coefficients that reflect subject �sensitivity� to awakening are real or a result of the random nature of awakenings. The first analysis used the awakening data collected by Sanford Fidell at Castle Air Force Base, Los Angeles International Airport and the new Denver International Airport. Since that analysis, the authors of the Dutch Sleep Disturbance Study (W. Passchier-Vermeer, H. Vos, J.H.M. Steenbekkers, F.D. van der Ploeg and K. Groothuis-Oudshoorn) graciously provided the data they collected in the vicinity of Schiphol Airport for inclusion in this updated analysis