CAA publishes SoNA 2014
The Survey of Noise Attitudes 2014 (SoNA 2014), which was commissioned by the Department for Transport, builds on earlier noise attitude surveys commissioned by Defra.
Almost 2000 people, from around nine UK airports, answered more than 200 questions, using internationally-recognised methodologies.
Its objectives are to:
• Obtain new and updated evidence on attitudes to aviation noise around airports in England, including the effects of aviation noise on annoyance
• Obtain new and updated evidence on what influences attitudes to aviation noise (Chapter 5 & 7), and how attitudes vary, including non-acoustic factors, e.g. location and time of day, and socio economic group of respondents
• Examine whether the currently used measure of annoyance, LAeq, is the appropriate measure
This new and updated evidence will contribute to thinking around policy thresholds for what constitutes “significant annoyance” to communities affected by aircraft noise and provide baseline results for more regular surveys going forwards
Key findings include:
• Annoyance scores were found to be lower than found by the full ANASE study (surveyed 2002, reported 2007), and higher than found by the ANIS study (surveyed 1982, reported 1985).
• For a given noise exposure, a lower proportion of respondents was found to be highly annoyed than compared with ANASE, the results of which were considered unreliable
• Non-acoustic factors such as noise sensitivity, approximated social grade, and expectations – both prior to moving to an area exposed to aircraft noise and in the future – influence reported aircraft noise annoyance and these non-acoustic factors may be as important as the noise exposure level
For more information:
www.caa.co.uk/noiseeffects
