Abstract
Protecting residential populations from exposure to highly annoying transportation noise is a common goal of national noise regulatory policies. Agencies which define and regulate "acceptable" levels of transportation noise often justify their policies with reference to a dosage-response relationship for noise-induced annoyance. This relationship converts levels of cumulative noise exposure - including a noise exposure level that an agency considers "acceptable" - into predicted annoyance prevalence rates in a hypothetical, nominally average community. Because the prevalence of annoyance for the same transportation noise exposure varies over a range in excess of 30 dB from one community to the next, however, a "one-size-fits-all" national policy can greatly under- or over-predict the prevalence of annoyance in many actual communities. Recent advances in understanding of community-specific response to transportation noise permit quantitative estimates to be made of the efficacy of regulatory policies in protecting all communities from annoyance produced by transportation noise.
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