NTL Record

Title Effects of Nocturnal Air and Rail Traffic Noise on Sleep
Record ID 82138
Personal Name
Creator
Müller, Uwe; Elmenhorst, Eva-Maria; Mendolia, Franco; Basner, Mathias; McGuire, Sarah; Aeschbach, Daniel
Corporate Creator United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels and Environment; University of Pennsylvania. School of Medicine
Corporate
Contributor
United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Office of Environment and Energy
Publisher United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Office of Environment and Energy
Publication Date 20160900
Language English
Abstract Undisturbed and sufficiently long sleep is a prerequisite for a healthy life as well as for the prevention of fatigue-induced accidents. Especially the increasing air and freight rail traffic is more and more shifted to shoulder and night-time hours due to missing capacity and infrastructure during daytime. Thus, the sleep of residents near airports or railway tracks is increasingly affected by traffic noise. Only very few main airports, such as Frankfurt (Germany), implemented a night flight ban in order to countervail this trend. Since 1999 the Institute of Aerospace Medicine of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has investigated these night time noise effects in several field studies in which the sound pressure levels LAS and LAF and sound files were continuously measured with class one sound level meters at the sleeper’s ear. Sleep structure was recorded with polysomnography (simultaneous measurement of brain waves, eye movements, and muscle tone), the gold-standard to quantify sleep objectively. The results on sleep quality and additional awakening reactions due to traffic noise from former studies performed at Cologne/Bonn airport (high night time traffic) and a busy railway track in the Rhine valley (high night time freight traffic) are compared with the results of the recently completed NORAH (Noise-Related Annoyance, Cognition, and Health) study at Frankfurt airport. In the latter study data were collected both before as well as after the implementation of a ban of night flights between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.. Sound exposure distributions, average sound levels and sound level rise time distributions at the sleepers’ ear are presented for all three studies.
Rosap ID dot:57445
Rosap URL https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/57445
TRT Terms Aircraft noise; Railroad rails; Noise; Sleep; Sleep deprivation; Traffic noise
General Subjects Rail Noise; Polysomnography; ASCENT
Geographical
Coverage
United States
TRIS Online
Accession No
1788102
Contract Number 13-C-AJFE-UPenn-001, 002
Report Number ICA2016-0378
Resource type Proceedings
URL https://ntlrepository.blob.core.windows.net/lib/82000/82100/82138/17-ICA2016-0378_pub_Effects_of_nocturnal.pdf
Format PDF
Database NTL Digital Repository