Social Survey on Community Response to Road Traffic Noise in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Kinshasa, capital of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), is facing serious noise problems caused by the expansion of transportation and the increase of traffic volume without any regulation or policy introduced. This social survey conducted in September 2017, is the first survey ever performed on road traffic noise in Kinshasa. Four sites along major roads were selected. Questionnaire survey was carried out by face to face interview and 235 samples were collected. A 24-hour noise measurement was conducted at a representative point of each road and the noise indices such as LDEN were calculated. The LDEN of the four sites were from 73 to 79 dB. The percentages of highly annoyed and highly sleep disturbed were from 30% to 41% and 38% to 52% , respectively. The higher percentages were observed in sites with the higher noise level. A logistic regression analyses were applied to plot the dose-response relationship for general annoyance. The result was close to EU curve and higher than that in Vietnam.