Study on Annoyance and Sleep Disturbance Induced by Combined Noises from Road Traffic and Viaduct Rail Transit

In order to evaluate the adverse effects of combined traffic noise, a face-to-face survey was carried out among 1433 local residents aging from 15 to 75 years. The relationships between the percentage of highly annoyed (%HA), sleep disturbance and acoustical/non-acoustical factors (Ldn, age, gender, residence time, time at home, etc.) were analyzed, respectively. Results showed that %HA caused by road–rail combined traffic noise (%HAroad–rail) was between %HA caused by road dominant noise (%HAroad) and %HA caused by viaduct rail transit dominant noise (%HArail) at same Ldn, which could be explained by partial masking effect. When Ldn > 63 dB, %HArail was higher than %HAroad, which may be related to that the visibility of noise source (trains) and the vibration generated during pass-by of trains could indirectly cause an increment of noise annoyance. When Ldn < 63 dB, %HArail was lower than %HAroad. This may be explained by that the noise disturbance caused by maximal A-weighted sound pressure level of railway noise events in the area dominated by road traffic noise had more influence on annoyance than that in the area dominated by viaduct rail transit noise. Meanwhile, %HA showed a rising trend with the increase in the proportion of nighttime in total time at home, which may be related to that people had a less tolerance to noise at night. The sleep disturbance reached the maximum in the age-group of 30–40 years, which was correlated with that middle-aged people had higher stress and higher noise sensitivity.