Combined environmental effects of road traffic

The report describes results from a five year research programme on road traffic and environmental annoyances. The analyses utilise a data base comprising 17 community surveys and 19000 respondents. The programme has contribued to the establish-ment of national exposure-effect curves for road traffic noise, exhaust/-smell, dust/dirt and vibrations in dwellings. It also contributed to three standards NS 8176, NT ACOU 106 and ISO TS 1666:2003 on vibrations, and the assessment of peoples reactions to vibration and noise. A model for the combined effects of noise at the dwelling and in the neighbour-hood and local air pollution on environmental annoyances has been developed. Measures improving the situation at a dwelling, along a street or for a whole city area, affect different parts of the model. The efficacy of these different types of measures are therefore different from what one would expect from partial single exposure single reaction models. Improvement strategies in multi-exposed areas should differ from those applied to a single exposure area.