Railway noise levels, annoyance and countermeasures in Assiut, Egypt

A field study of railway noise has been carried out in urban Assiut City, which is the largest city in Upper Egypt. The railway line is located in the middle of the city and splits it into two parts. The goals of the study were: (1) to carry out measurements of the railway noise levels and establish the extent to which the measured levels exceed the permissible levels; (2) to consider appropriate countermeasures for reducing railway noise in the city; (3) to examine people's attitudes towards railway noise. The results of the measurements showed that the railway noise levels in Assiut are higher than those set by Egyptian noise standards and policy to protect public health and welfare in residential area. Day-night equivalent continuous A - weighted sound pressure levels (Ldn) of 80 dB and higher were recorded, while the maximum permissible level is 65 dB. The Experiments showed that: (i) a ban on using train horns decreased noise level by 17 dB; (ii) using a barrier decreased noise levels by 12.7 dB; (iii) reducing the speed of the trains from 100 to 30 k/h decreased the noise level by 10.1 dB; (iv) doubling the typical distance between track centerline and the nearest buildings from 50 to 100 m decreased noise level by 4.3 dB. The attitude survey showed that 51.3% of dwellers of Assiut heard railway noise. Sixty seven percent of the respondents who heard railway noise felt highly annoyed. By increasing the noise level, the percentage of respondents who felt highly annoyed is also increased.