Effects of noise exposure of other people on aircraft noise tolerability using a reference point approach

Reactions to aircraft noise resulting from an airport development vary considerably among individuals. This paper examines whether the noise level tolerated by individuals is affected when they compare their own situation to the situations of other people who are more severely affected by the noise. We modeled the individual noise tolerability by adopting the reference point concept and the value function of prospect theory. A questionnaire assessed different levels of noise-affected zones at a hypothetical airport. Individual noise tolerable level was measured by a prerecorded aircraft noise presented via headphones. Decision-making associated with the reported satisfaction level regarding the changes in operational flight frequency settings at the airport. An interview survey was conducted with residents near Manila airport in the Philippines. We applied genetic algorithm to jointly estimate the parameters for noise tolerability model and the value function. Results showed that individuals tolerated more overhead flights when they considered the situations of other people worse affected by the noise than they were. The tendency of noise tolerability increased with the severity of noise exposure situations of other people, but lower reactions to noise escalation. We also observed diminishing sensitivity to changes in noise relative to the noise tolerable level. The aircraft noise tolerability and the consideration of noise exposure situations of other people appeared to be a vital aspect to be considered in airport noise management and policy.     

Investigation of environmental justice analysis in airport planning practice from 2000 to 2010

Municipal airport owners and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regularly evaluate capacity and demand to decide if and when airports need more infrastructure. New infrastructure can alter the profile of noise, emissions, and land use, which may affect the quality of life for airport-adjacent communities. When the FAA and airport owners initiate infrastructure expansion, they must conduct environmental justice analysis to measure the distribution of negative externalities on nearby communities. This research investigates the environmental justice methodologies and narratives reported in planning documents for nineteen airport capacity expansions planned or deployed from 2000 to 2010 in the United States. The mixed-methods approach analyzes airport operations data, spatial demographic data, and planning artifacts to determine whether the environmental justice analyses were robust. This research proposes alternative metrics, the ‘Risk of disproportionate impact’ and ‘Capacity strain’, to further contextualize the presence of protected population groups alongside capacity needs. The main finding of the study is that the planning documents did not consistently detect environmental justice impacts, nor did they consistently confer importance to those impacts when high proportions of protected populations were detected. As a result, the social costs of collective airport expansion are unclear and likely underestimated. This study identifies two limitations that undermined the environmental justice analysis throughout the airport sample: (1) inconsistent methodological choices impeded the detection of impacts and, (2) narrative interpretations tended to ‘null’ the finding even when impacts were detected.     

Determination and Applications of Environmental Costs at Different Sized Airports – Aircraft Noise and Engine Emissions

With the increasing trend of charging for externalities and the aim of encouraging the sustainable development of the air transport industry, there is a need to evaluate the social costs of these undesirable side effects, mainly aircraft noise and engine emissions, for different airports. The aircraft noise and engine emissions social costs are calculated in monetary terms for five different sized airports, ranging from hub airports to small regional airports. The number of residences within different levels of airport noise contours and the aircraft noise classifications are the main determinants for accessing aircraft noise social costs. The environmental impacts of aircraft engine emissions include both aircraft landing and take-off and 30-minute cruise. The social costs of aircraft emissions vary by engine type and aircraft category, depending on the damage caused by different engine pollutants on the human health, vegetation, materials, aquatic ecosystem and climate. The results indicate that the relationship appears to be curvilinear between environmental costs and the traffic volume of an airport. The results and methodology of environmental cost calculation could be applied to the proposed European wide harmonised noise charges as well as the social cost benefit analysis of airports.     

Estimation of airport noise impacts on public health. A case study of İzmir Adnan Menderes Airport

The air transport industry is showing rapid growth in line with the call for meeting the requirements of a rising population. Noise mapping is more useful than surveys and measurements to estimate the effects of noise on public health. In this paper, noise levels for the day, evening and night time slices around İzmir Adnan Menderes Airport were calculated by use of the SoundPLAN 7.2 software according to the European Noise Directive, and the “ECAC Doc. 29-Interim” method was applied for the computation of the aircraft noise. Air traffic data of year 2012, technical information about the airport and geographical data including the layers of elevation, residential buildings, auxiliary buildings, hospitals and schools were used as the main inputs for the model developed in the study. The model was found to perform well for the areas closer to the airport. The results of the study suggested that the area at the north side of the airport, where the city center of İzmir is located, is more affected than other areas. The threshold value of 55 dB(A) was found to be exceeded in 0.3% of the land area covered by İzmir City center during the time slice “day”. The results showed that about 2% of the resident population was exposed to noise levels of 55 dB(A) or higher during day-time in İzmir. In addition, it was understood that the number of people who are potentially exposed to high noise levels and threatened by several illness such as hypertension and sleep disturbances is significant in the surrounding area of the airport. It is thought to be important for airport operators to manage the airport capacity based on the flight schedules in order to control the noise exposure level around the airport.     

Modeling taxi drivers’ decisions for improving airport ground access: John F. Kennedy airport case

Taxi service is an important component of airport ground access, which affects the economic competitiveness of an airport and its potential positive impact on the surrounding region. Airports across the globe experience both taxi shortages and excesses due to various factors such as the airport’s proximity to the city center, timing and frequency of flights, and the fare structure. Since taxi drivers are independent entities whose decisions affect the taxi supply at airports, it is important to understand taxi drivers’ decision mechanisms in order to suggest policies and to maintain taxi demand and supply equilibrium at the airports. In this paper, New York City (NYC) taxi drivers’ decisions about airport pick-ups or cruising for customers at the end of each trip is modeled using logistic regression based on a large taxi GPS dataset. The presented approach helps to quantify the potential impacts of parameters and to rank their influence for policy recommendations. The results reveal that spatial variables (mainly related to proximity) have the highest impact on taxi drivers’ airport pickup decisions, followed by temporal, environmental and driver-shift related variables. Along with supplementary information from unstructured taxi driver interviews, the model results are used to suggest policies for the improvement of John F. Kennedy (JFK) airport’s ground access and passenger satisfaction, i.e. the implementation of taxi driver frequent airport server punch cards and a time-specific ride share program.     

Determinants of airports’ environmental effects

Aviation is a fast growing sector with increasing environmental concerns linked to aircraft emissions at airports and noise nuisance. This paper investigates the factors affecting the annual environmental effects produced by a national aviation system. The environmental effects are computed using certification data for each aircraft-engine combination. Moreover, we also take into account for the amount of environmental effects that is internalized at the airport, mainly through noise regulation. We study a dataset covering information on Italian airports during the period 1999–2008. We show that a 1% increase in airport’s yearly movements yields a 1.05% increase in environmental effects, a 1% in aircraft size (measured in MTOW) gives rise to a 1.8% increase and a 1% increase in aircraft age generates a 0.69% increase in environmental effects. Similar results but with smaller magnitudes are observed if airport internalization is considered. Our policy implications are that the tariff internalizing the total amount of externality is about euro 180 per flight, while the tariff limiting only pollution is about euro 60 and the one reducing noise is about euro 110. Moreover, our airport examples show that managers should prefer to address additional capacity by increasing frequency rather than aircraft size, since the former strategy is more environmental friendly.     

Multi-impact optimization to reduce aviation noise and emissions

This paper describes a multi-indicator assessment and minimization problem focused on aviation “Community” noise. The model explores a combined noise and emission objective for airfreight movements at Luxembourg’s Findel Airport. Community noise is evaluated via four population impact indicators emissions are tabulated from in-flight segments in the proximity of the airport and from the contribution of taxiing. A set of scenarios based on trajectory, aircraft scheduling, fleet composition, operational procedures are implemented in software. An integer programming methodology is used to search for minimal environmental impact. An on/off switch allows for an evaluation of each indicator in the objective. Different impacts on the population are explored in a case study involving the Cargolux Airlines International S.A.     

Experience sampling in and around airports. Momentary subjective wellbeing,airports, and aviation noise in England

We explore the wellbeing of people in and around English airports using real-time data from a large spatial positioning experience sampling dataset (Mappiness). We analyze the association between subjective wellbeing reported in the moment and aviation, in terms of airport location, aircraft noise, and activities within airports. This is the first time that a large Experience Sample Method (ESM) of momentary wellbeing measurements has been used to quantify the associations between aviation and subjective wellbeing. Being within areas of high levels of aircraft noise is associated with lower levels of happiness and relaxation. Those surveyed in proximity to airports report significantly lower levels of relaxation. These findings have important implications to policy. Exploiting the panel nature of the ESM data provides the strongest causal claims to date of the negative association between aviation activities and subjective wellbeing. The Mappiness application also allows us to assess the association between airports and wellbeing on those inside them, and divide activities within airports between those who work there and those who are passing through for travel purposes, as well as the effects of aircraft noise beyond airports. This gives us a broader insight into the range of impacts, both positive and negative, that aviation has on peoples’ momentary wellbeing, which may be used to inform aviation noise mitigation and compensation policies in the future.     

Environmental considerations of land transport in developing countries (part 2)

Developing countries have unique problems and needs which must be considered when attempting to identify and evaluate the environmental impacts of land transport. This paper presents a review of the relevant literature that can be used to identify, evaluate and mitigate environmental impacts of land transport facilities (development and operation) in developing countries. After examining the relevant characteristics of land transport development in such countries, the paper discusses the environmental effects. Controls and countermeasures associated with each category of impacts are also reviewed under the broad categories of air, noise and water pollution as well as land use changes and social and ecological impacts. Issues concerning environmental impact assessment/analysis process and transport of hazardous materials are then addressed. The procedures established by the World Bank for the environmental assessment of Bank‐financed projects are mentioned. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the responsibilities of the developing countries in meeting the growing challenge of environmental degradation.     

Air traffic assignment to reduce population noise exposure using activity-based approach

Aircraft noise has been regarded as one of the major environmental issues related to air transport. Many airports have introduced a variety of measures to reduce its impact. Several air traffic assignment strategies have been proposed in order to allocate noise more wisely. Even though each decision regarding the assignment of aircraft to routes should consider population exposure to noise, none of the air traffic assignment strategies has addressed daily migrations of population and number of people exposed to noise. The aim of this research is to develop a mathematical model and a heuristic algorithm that could assign aircraft to departure and arrival routes so that number of people exposed to noise is as low as possible, taking into account temporal and spatial variations in population in an airport’s vicinity. The approach was demonstrated on Belgrade airport to show the benefits of the proposed model. Numerical example showed that population exposure to noise could be reduced significantly by applying the proposed air traffic assignment model. As a consequence of the proposed air traffic assignment, overall fuel consumption increased by less than 1%.     

Freighter operators' choice of airport: a three‐stage process

With increasing levels of congestion at the major cargo hubs and further restrictions on noise and night‐time flying, freighter operators' airport choice is a complex and important issue. The aim is to identify the factors that affect the airport choice of freighter operators through a review of the published literature. The literature reviewed includes work relating to passenger hub location, airport quality and airline network configuration, and other works relating to airport choice to paint a full picture of the current research in this area. The literature shows that freighter operators initially choose a shortlist of possible airports based on geography and then investigate any restrictions in place, such as capacity caps or noise limits that might block operations from that airport. Only when these hurdles have been cleared do freighter operators consider attributes of airport quality such as charges and terminal facilities, as well as other influences such as freight forwarder presence and airport marketing. Of particular prominence is the impact of legislation on airport choice.     

Flight and passenger delay assignment optimization strategies

This paper compares different optimization strategies for the minimization of flight and passenger delays at two levels: pre-tactical, with on-ground delay at origin, and tactical, with airborne delay close to the destination airport. The optimization model is based on the ground holding problem and uses various cost functions. The scenario considered takes place in a busy European airport and includes realistic values of traffic. A passenger assignment with connections at the hub is modeled. Statistical models are used for passenger and connecting passenger allocation, minimum time required for turnaround and tactical noise; whereas uncertainty is also introduced in the model for tactical noise. Performance of the various optimization processes is presented and compared to ration by schedule results.     

The impacts of changing flight demands and throughput performance on airport delays through the Great Recession

Several significant events between 2007 and 2009 impacted flight demands and the abilities of the three major New York area airports to handle demand. This paper assesses the results of applying a probabilistic simulation method – which isolates the individual contributions of changes in flight demand and changes in airport throughput performance to changes in flight delays – to diagnose how these different events may have caused operational changes at these airports, and in turn, how the results may be used to inform policies for appropriate countermeasures. The analysis revealed two key observations. Firstly, certain patterns in throughput performance shifts caused the most significant delays, and were more likely to have been caused by controller staffing issues rather than caps. Secondly, relatively constant average delays from one year to the next may result from significant demand drops accompanied by large throughput performance degradations at an airport. This suggests that not only operational limitations on capacity encourage airlines to reduce schedules, but that changed demands can also impact throughput performance. Overall, the analysis indicates that caps may not have provided their fully intended delay benefits. Although they successfully reduced overall flight demands at LGA and JFK, they also directly limited throughput performance at critical times, in turn limiting delay benefits. In addition, demands at the busiest times of the day appear to be relatively inelastic to these operational limitations, insofar as demand profiles at EWR and JFK remained “peaky” in 2008 and 2009. Also, the recession was largely responsible for reducing demands at the airports in 2009, but the delay benefits of this were dampened by a corresponding throughput performance degradation. Based on the above observations, a more direct demand management policy combined with policies that focus on maintaining high staffing capabilities at critical times of the day may be considered, to reduce the likelihood of major queue formation on days that do experience sustained demands. The results also suggest that a more flexible caps system, particularly during times of heavy queues, could be explored. Although airport practitioners have keen understandings of how their airports operate, without the support of quantitative analysis tools, it can be more difficult to argue the need for appropriate countermeasures. An analysis such as the one presented here can provide the detailed quantitative substantiation required to build cases for these targeted policy directives and infrastructure investments.     

The economics of airport noise: How to manage markets for noise licenses

This paper discusses various issues in the implementation of a local market for aircraft noise licenses to solve the noise externalities harming the residents located near airports. The design of such markets is affected by aircraft heterogeneity, wind contingencies, peak times, runways capacity constraints, hub strategies, and airport planning is discussed.     

A Review of Transport Noise Indicators

The different approaches to noise impact assessment adopted by the individual countries and the scientific community have led to the development of a certain number of indicators, mainly focused on specific transport modes. However, in practice, technicians and decision-makers alike may fail to identify the most appropriate indicators, if they have no specific expertise on environmental noise. This paper presents a review of the main transport noise indicators, both the general acoustic ones and those used for specific transport modes. A critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of these indicators is provided, as well as a section discussing the framework in which they work, and suggestions for their best use, aimed at assisting decision-makers to ascertain their role in the evaluation process of the transport systems. To this extent, a classification is proposed, supplemented by the DPSIR (driving forces, pressures, states, impacts, responses) approach, in an effort to assess the cause–effect relationship between society and the environment. Decision-makers will also gain insight into the prioritization of the use of the existing indicators in accordance to their own needs, as well as advice on the joint use of socioeconomic variables to fully support their decisions.     

A critical examination of an airport noise mitigation scheme and an aircraft noise charge: the case of capacity expansion and externalities at Sydney (Kingsford Smith) airport

In the wake of the Australian airline liberalization in 1990 and its forecasted impact on air traffic, capacity has been expanded at Sydney (Kingsford Smith) airport (Sydney KSA) – Australia's busiest commercial airport – with the construction of the third runway in 1994. Coinciding with the approval for this capacity expansion, the Commonwealth Government amended the Federal Airports Corporation (FAC) Act to direct the FAC to carry out activities which protect the environment from the effects of aircraft operations, with the cost to be borne by the airline industry according to the ‘Polluter Pays Principle'. Noise management plans were part of the conditions for developmental approval for a third runway. To this end, since 1995, Sydney KSA imposes a noise levy designed to generate sufficient revenues to fund a noise mitigation scheme. Although the issues of aircraft noise, in particular its impact on property values and land use planning around the airport, have been extensively addressed in the literature, no one has empirically examined the implications of new environmental policies in conjunction with airline liberalization and change in airport infrastructure. Principles and policy analyses are discussed in this paper. By focusing on the specifics of Sydney KSA, broader policy issues likely to be relevant for other major airports around the world are discussed.     

Using supplemental aircraft noise information to assist airport neighbours understand aircraft noise

This paper deals with the value of supplemental aircraft noise information in the form of combining aircraft movement numbers and noise levels to assist airport neighbours in understanding airport noise. To analyse the socio-spatial interaction of annoyance with, and interference by, aircraft noise, an alternative is recommended, namely the number of noise events above selected noise levels so that laypeople can better understand the extent of noise. The research is based on a questionnaire survey of households affected by aircraft noise around OR Tambo International Airport near Johannesburg. The results indicate that levels of annoyance and disturbance across a number of normal household activities are positively related to the number of noise events recorded, irrespective of noise levels above 60 dB.     

Light Rail Rapid Transit systems for more sustainable ground accessibility of airports

This paper investigates the potential of Light Rail Rapid Transit (LRRT) to mitigate the environmental and social burden of ground access systems of an airport. This implies, on the one hand, LRRT's capability in mitigating externalities in terms of noise, air pollution/climate change, traffic incidents/accidents and congestion of airport ground access systems and, on the other, the provision of sufficient capacity to accommodate generally increasing volumes of both air passenger and airport employee demand by connecting the airport to its core catchment area. A methodology for assessing the capability of LRRT operating as an airport ground access system is developed. This methodology consists of models to analyze and predict demand and capacity for an LRRT system and models to quantify the externalities of particular airport ground access systems as well as assessing their prospective savings thanks to the introduction of an LRRT system. The methodology is applied to a large European airport – Amsterdam Schiphol (the Netherlands) – using a ‘what-if?’ scenario approach.     

Effect of local operational constraints on runway capacity - A case study

The estimation of runway capacity is important in airport planning and operational analysis. Standard procedures for capacity determination typically assume that there is no constraint on aircraft operations and do not provide good estimates when constraints exist. This paper presents a study of runway capacity at Singapore Changi Airport in which local operational constraints are taken into account. In addition, the impacts on capacity due to marine vessel crossings in a shipping channel near the airport, and the timing for implementation of simultaneous, independent instrument approach procedures are also investigated. The levels of annual aviation demand that could be served without excessive delays to aircraft under various operating scenarios are estimated.