Attitudinal factors as determinants of railway vibration annoyance

The aim of this paper is to identify and understand the role of the attitudinal factors involved in annoyance reported due to railway vibration. Many non-acoustical factors have been identified with various degrees of association with annoyance due to noise exposure. In particular, attitudinal factors have shown a large effect on noise annoyance reporting. However, the novelty of this work lies in the examination of attitudinal factors on vibration annoyance reporting. This is achieved using data from case studies comprised of face-toface interviews (N=931) and internal vibration measurements collected within the study “Human Response to Vibration in Residential Environments” by the University of Salford. The effect on vibration annoyance of sensitivity to vibration, property damage concern and expected vibration levels is investigated using multivariate modelling and ordinal logistic regression. The conclusions are that attitudinal factors including property damage concern and the individual’s opinion on future vibration levels are related to vibration annoyance, while no significant relationship is seen between self-reported vibration sensitivity and overall annoyance. The implications of these findings for the potential expansion of freight traffic on rail are discussed. [Work funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) UK, and EU FP7 through the Cargovibes project]