A survey of community attitudes towards noise near a general aviation airport

Abstract

This paper describes a community attitudinal noise survey performed in the vicinity of the Decatur, Illinois Airport. Two hundred thirty-one respondents were drawn from four distinct noise zones in populated areas near the airport. The day/night average sound levels (DNL) ranged from 44-66 dB. The area is otherwise quiet, residential with large (1/2 acre) lots. The primary analysis arrayed the percent of respondents highly annoyed versus DNL. Good agreement was found between the results of this survey and the general relation developed by Schultz from surveys worldwide, primarily in the vicinity of large commercial airports and highways. In addition, reasonable comparisons were found between respondent estimates of the number of aircraft operations and actual traffic counts. It was also found that respondents who were highly annoyed by aircraft noise were three to four times as likely to be highly annoyed by some other noise than were other respondents.