Community reaction to railway vibration at different times of the day

Nighttime and evening time noise have a greater impact on annoyance in residential areas than daytime noise of the same level. A number of studies showed different sensitivities with respect to noise exposure during the day, evening and night in particular for air traffic (Fields 1986a, b; Miedema et al. 2000; Schreckenberg & Meis 2006). Lden was proven to be a good indicator for long term effects (notably annoyance). Lden incorporates different weighting factors for noise in the evening and night for predicting annoyance (5 dB penalty for 19-23 h, and 10 dB penalty for 23-7 h). Lden is one of the EU-indicators for environmental noise (EU Directive 2002/49/EC) and it is currently used to illustrate exposure-response relationships for transportation noise (Miedema & Oudshoorn 2001).