WHY ARE PEOPLE’S ATTITUDES TO AIRCRAFT ANNOYANCE DIFFERENT?

Aircraft noise, local air quality and fear of accident are the most prevalent factors responsible for annoyance. There has been no shortage of opinion surveys around airports in the past. None of these appears, however, to have come up with any real definition of the factors that lead to different attitudes towards aircraft annoyance.

The only metrics currently used to measure annoyance concern noise. Aircraft noise is one of the main environmental problems constraining the future growth of air transport and its amplitude is easily the most important of the factors responsible for annoyance, though repitition is also significant. This annoyance is, however, tempered by many other factors which are difficult to measure. Current noise metrics do not reflect the levels of annoyance experienced and are considered to correlate with annoyance at the 30% level only.

What are the real effects of airports on the quality of life of those who live near them? Why is there such a strong aversion to airport expansion? Does everyone complain as much? Is it always those who are the most affected who complain the loudest? Which factors lead to different attitudes towards aircraft annoyance?

The annoyance felt by people living around airports is caused by a number of adverse aspects which, with the exception of noise, are not taken into account by indices. This annoyance is also influenced by other factors such as culture, socio-economic standing, personal sensitivity, climate etc. which could explain the differences in attitude.

Unless these adverse effects are adequately understood and taken into account by airport planners, an airport will ultimately suffer externally imposed constraints, jeopardising all of the benefits arising from its success.

This initial pilot study is limited to analysing the impact of aircraft noise. The purpose of the research is to reassess the criteria by which the nuisance, particularly noise, is associated with airports and to describe possible differences in noise annoyance concerns among people affected by airport and aircraft nuisance in different European nations. The study aims to deliver first steps towards the definition of a means of supplying a measure of annoyance which could be modelled from a knowledge of these factors.

Although the intention is to concentrate on noise issues, it is important to put annoyance from aircraft into context with other quality of life issues.

The methodology consists of attitude surveys around Manchester airport then reproduced and carried out in Lyon Saint-Exupery (France) and in Otopeni Bucharest (Romania). This work is carried out by the Institute of Transport Studies (ITS) at Leeds University, UK, and Faber Maunsell Plc, a British research organisation, with additional work by Manchester Metropolitan University, UK; and IPSOS and Alma-Ro, French and Romanian research organisations.

The 5A pilot study is organised over three main phases:

• a qualitative phase, involving focus group meetings,
• a quantitative survey based on the results of the qualitative phase,
• an analysis of the results.

The reactions to these issues across the three countries already appear to be very similar, but disturbance by or tolerance of levels vary depending on differences in social, economic and cultural factors, fear of air accidents, lack of information and many others. This qualitative research provided the context for aircraft noise within other quality of life issues associated with airports. The results of focus groups show the most annoying factors and a sound understanding of these factors.

An assessment of the results of the focus groups will allow the design of a preliminary draft questionnaire using the Stated Preference approach to obtain monetary valuations of the nuisance caused by aircraft noise. A pilot survey will test the questionnaire to lead to the final fieldwork methodology.

A quantitative study of 200 households and consisting of a face-to-face survey and including presentational aspects of stated preference (trade-off) will then be performed around each airport.

The analysis of the study will take background noise into account through the use of a newly developed parametric ambient noise model that will allow the correlation of the emergence of aircraft noise with people’s attitudes. It is expected that the final report will be available in the next newsletter.

A more thorough study is planned for the future to extend the analysis to further countries and many more airports once the lessons learned from the pilot study have been taken on board.