Assessment of annoyance in a multisource environment

The annoyance caused by common community noise sources (road traffic noise, rail noise, aircraft noise, etc.) has been shown to be highly correlated with the energy-equivalent noise level, LEQ (or similar derivatives) from that source. In some cases LEQ is adjusted depending on the time of day (as in LDN) or depending on the nature of the source (e.g., impulsive noise). So-called dose-response curves showing the relationship between the noise level and the annoyance have been established for a number of different noise sources. This annoyance assessment method, however, is only valid for single noise sources. The authors present a method for assessment of annoyance in the presence of several noise sources. Each noise source is transformed into a common reference source by means of established dose-response curves, and then added on an energy basis.