INTERNATIONAL STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF RESIDUAL NOISE ON COMMUNITY DISTURBANCE DUE TO AIRCRAFT NOISE.

Aircraft noise indices have historically been developed on a national basis usually through an integrated program of social surveys and noise measurements in the vicinity of major airports. As might be expected there have been international differences in the questionnaire design, details of noise measurement, and analysis of the results. These differences have led to different measures of disturbance and noise levels. This study comes from an initiative by the Commission of European Communities to establish common methods for collecting data around airports to allow comparison of results between surveys. The proportions reporting annoyance from aircraft noise could be predicted adequately using levels of aircraft noise while levels of residual noise do not influence annoyance due to aircraft noise. With regard to annoyance from all noise, the best noise index in this case was Total LEQ which averages both aircraft and residual noise.