Noise Annoyance from Urban Roads and Motorways

A socio-acoustic noise annoyance survey with 7000 respondents has been performed in 2014 along motorways and urban roads in major cities in Denmark. The annoyance questions followed ISO 15 666 and the answers were analysed together with the noise levels (Lden) at the most exposed façade.The results show that persons living near motorways are in average much more annoyed at the same noise exposure than persons living near urban roads. At 20% Highly Annoyed the difference in Lden between the two types of roads is more than 10 dB. The dose-response curves found in this survey for the urban roads are quite close to the EU (Miedema) dose-response curves for road traffic noise and to curves found in earlier surveys in Denmark. Analyses for moderating factors for the annoyance were also made. The type of residence, existence of a quiet façade, direct view to the traffic and age were among the moderating factors. The outdoor annoyance was significantly higher for the motorways than for the urban roads while the indoor annoyance was about the same for the two types of roads. The results indicate a need to consider noise from motorways separately from noise from other roads.