THE ANNOYANCE CAUSED BY SIMULTANEOUS NOISE AND VIBRATION FROM RAILWAYS

A study has been conducted to determine a method of predicting subjective response to simultaneous noise and vibration produced in buildings near railways. The method of magnitude estimation was used by 20 subjects to indicate the annoyance produced by vibration and noise in houses during the passage of six trains. The subjects were exposed to 90 stimuli consisting of 15 paired combinations of four levels of noise and four magnitudes of vibration for each of the six trains. The influence of duration, magnitude, and frequency of vibration and the effect of simultaneous noise were combined to provide a method of predicting the relative annoyance for different combinations of noise and vibration. The resulting relation, which involved the summation of the individual effects of the two stimuli in terms of the vibration dose value and the sound exposure level, was shown to provide a more accurate means of predicting the overall reaction from simultaneous noise and vibration than a method based on either noise or vibration alone. It may also be employed to indicate the relative importance of the two stimuli. The findings suggest that the vibration dose value and the sound exposure level are sufficient to provide useful approximations to subjective reactions to short duration exposures to railway vibration and noise.