Analysis of noise abatement measures on European airports

Air traffic noise is one of the major constraints of airport development. Many airports recognized noise problem long ago and have introduced a variety of measures to reduce its impact. The number and types of the introduced measures differ between airports. In order to determine the most influential factors for the introduction of noise abatement measures in airport surroundings, the research presented in this paper examined 248 European airports. By analyzing the correlation of specific characteristics related to airports (number of runways and aircraft operations, distance from the city and the population of the city that it serves, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita) and the number of introduced noise abatement measures, five hypothesis were examined: the higher number of aircraft operations causes the introduction of a higher number of noise abatement measures (NAMs); the higher number of runways will affect the introduction of a higher number of NAMs; airports that are closer to the settlement will introduce a higher number of NAMs; the higher population in the vicinity of the airport will affect the introduction of higher number of NAMs; the higher GDP per capita will affect the introduction of a higher number of NAMs. The results of analysis have shown that number of NAMs introduced does not have significant functional relationship with observed factors, except in some certain cases.