Professor Abigail Bristow

This paper looks at estimated valuations of changes in traffic related noise levels and air quality and contributes to the body of knowledge and to methodology in this area. There are several novel aspects of this research. Firstly, there have been relatively few stated preference studies of the monetary valuations of traffic related noise and air quality. A feature of this analysis is the examination of variations in values according to the size and sign of the environmental change, the currently experienced level of the attribute and various socio-economic factors. Secondly, the important issue of presentation is addressed, with two different methods used in the valuation of air quality and links made between valuations and physical measures. Thirdly, the results from stated preference and the contingent valuation method are compared. Finally, we bring together evidence from other studies and compare them with the findings obtained here. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The local environment influences people's perceptions of their quality of life and their overall well-being in many different ways. Whilst there are a wide range of local environmental factors that can impact on individuals' well-being, there is relatively little empirical evidence on this subject. In particular, there is a dearth of knowledge on their economic valuation, commonly expressed in terms of how much money individuals are prepared to pay for improved conditions. In this paper stated preference experiments are used to explore individuals' willingness to pay, in terms of council tax, to obtain improvements or to avoid deteriorations in a wide range of local quality of life and environmental factors. These include: local crime; local school quality; traffic noise at home; road traffic levels; pavement condition; urban quiet areas; fly-tipping; litter; fly-posting; graffiti; dog-fouling; discarded chewing gum; trees; light pollution (obscuring the stars); light intrusion (into the home) and odour. Values are derived for a both a categorical change and, for the environmental factors, for a one unit move along a 11 point rating scale. This study provides what we believe to be the first value for access to urban quiet areas and also indicates how important quiet areas are relative to a range of other local environmental factors.

This paper examines: students' assessment and rating of restorative space on campus including the individual components of such environments; students' willingness to pay for restorative environments and a comparison between responses in the UK and Hong Kong. In this exploratory phase pilot surveys were undertaken on two campuses: Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Loughborough University. Students were asked to rate the importance of and their satisfaction with a number of components of restorative space. A stated choice experiment was conducted within the survey using paired comparisons of visual stimuli which varied in terms of the presence of green plants; the presence of water; view of nature or a built environment and willingness to pay. The findings of this phase are of interest in indicating that respondents do value the presence of natural greenery and views in interior space. The sound environment, seating and lighting were seen as the most important features of restorative space in both Universities; whilst area of disagreement included greenery, more important in the Hong Kong sample and the temperature, more important in Loughborough. There was a high level of consensus on the sounds that contribute most to a restorative environment namely, trees or leaves, wind, water and music. The results will also feed into the second phase of the work will be lab based to enable the presentation of audio and visual stimuli together.

In 2002, one of the first studies to place monetary values on annoyance from aircraft movements using stated choice methods was conducted. A key feature was the comparison of valuations from a method that concealed the purpose of the valuation exercise and a more standard stated preference method where the purpose of valuing aircraft noise would be transparent. It was found that the valuations obtained from the transparent method were somewhat higher, even after controlling for time period, than those obtained from the quality of life based approach.We have repeated the data collection at Manchester Airport, in the summer of 2010. This was an exact repeat in terms of data collection method and stated preference exercises, except for the amendment of council tax levels to account for inflation. In addition, new variants of the stated choice exercises were offered to test specific hypotheses relating to incentive to bias and package effects. This paper reports the initial analysis of both data sets to provide insights into: • How valuations of aircraft noise have varied over time; we are not aware of any such repeat study in this particular context • Whether making clear the purpose of the quality of life SP exercise impacts on the valuations obtained relative to the transparent exercise • Examining whether 'package' effects are present in environmental valuation by offering some common time periods across exercises.

This article, focusing upon the UK, examines the relevance to strategic planning of methods to estimate the impacts of transport policy on land use processes. The study applied three differing techniques for forecasting these impacts to a common study area, and assessed planners' views on each. The methods comprised a Delphi survey, a simple static land use model, and a linked land-use/transport model. It was found that many factors influenced planners' views on appropriate methods. In general, comprehensive-modelling methods could provide a tool suitable for the needs of planners, but only if the underpinnings of the model were clear.

This paper reports a novel application of the stated choice method to the valuation of road traffic noise. The innovative context used is that of choice between apartments with different levels of traffic noise, view, sunlight and cost with which respondents would be familiar. Stated choice models were developed on both perceived and objective measures of traffic noise, with the former statistically superior, and an extensive econometric analysis has been conducted to assess the nature and extent of householders' heterogeneity of preferences for noise. This found that random taste variation is appreciable but also identified considerable systematic variation in valuations according to income level, household composition and exposure to noise. Self-selectivity is apparent, whereby those with higher marginal values of noise tend to live in quieter apartments. Sign and reference effects were apparent in the relationship between ratings and objective noise measures, presumably reflecting the non-linear nature of the latter. However, there was no strong support for sign, size or reference effects in the valuations of perceived noise levels. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Numerous research studies have elicited willingness-to-pay values for transport-related noise. However, in many industrialized countries including the UK, noise costs and benefits are still not incorporated into appraisals for most transport projects and policy changes. This paper describes the actions recently taken in the UK to address this issue, comprising: primary research based on the city of Birmingham; an international review of willingness-to-pay evidence; the development of values using benefit transfers over time and locations; and integration with appraisal methods. Amongst the main findings are: that the willingness-to-pay estimates derived for the UK are broadly comparable with those used in appraisal elsewhere in Europe; that there is a case for a lower threshold at 45 dB(A)Leq,18h rather than the more conventional 55 dB(A); and that values per dB(A) increase with the noise level above this threshold. There are significant issues over the valuation of rail versus road noise, the neglect of non-residential noise and the valuation of high noise levels in different countries. Conclusions are drawn regarding the feasibility of noise valuation based on benefit transfers in the UK and elsewhere, and future research needs in this field are discussed.

In July 2000 the UK government published a Ten Year Plan for transport (DETR, 2000a) which was broadly welcomed as a commitment to long-term investment to tackle the country's acknowledged transport problems. Two years later, the government is being widely criticised both for what it left out of the Plan and for failing to deliver on what was included in it (CfIT, 2002a; TLGRC, 2002; CIC, 2002; TPS, 2002a). What has gone wrong, and what lessons can we learn for strategic planning in transport?.

This paper explores the sorting process in response to differing levels of aviation noise exposure in a housing market. Spatiotemporal hedonic pricing (HP) and stated choice (SC) results reflect nonlinearities and stigma. The HP models reveal nonlinear noise depreciation increasing from 0.40 to 2.38 percent per decibel as noise increases, while the SC noise values are lower in an area with high long-term noise exposure. These nonlinearities are attributed to the spatial sorting of noise tolerant individuals. HP results from the same "noisy" area show a "stigma" from noise during the first year after the complete removal of aviation noise.

This paper contributes to the debate on the effectiveness of carbon trading schemes when contrasted with carbon taxes in reducing environmental externalities. An experimental survey explored individual's behavioural response to a personal carbon trading (PCT) scheme or a carbon tax (CT), both affecting personal transport and domestic energy choices. Responses were two-staged: first, whether to change behaviour or not, and second, how much to change. Results from the first stage indicate that those on high incomes and car users were less likely to change their behaviour, while those who had already changed their behaviour due to concern about climate change, lived in larger households or faced the CT were more likely to change. The second stage revealed fewer significant effects, the impact of already changing behaviour persisted and, in this case, those who faced PCT were likely to make greater changes. Both schemes appear to be capable of reducing individual carbon consumption; however, the evidence on the effectiveness of a PCT relative to a simpler CT is mixed and insufficient to make a strong case for such a complex scheme over a more straightforward tax.

Map-matching algorithms integrate data from positioning sensors with a digital map in order, first, to identify the road link on which a vehicle is traveling, and second, to determine the vehicle's location on that link. Due to errors in positioning sensors, digital maps, and the map-matching (MM) process, MM algorithms sometimes fail to identify the correct road segment from the candidate segments. This phenomenon is known as mismatching. Identification of the wrong road link may mislead users and degrade the performance of a location-based intelligent transportation system (ITS) and services. The main objective of this article is to improve a topological map-matching (tMM) algorithm by error detection, correction, and performance re-evaluation. Errors in a tMM algorithm were determined using data comprising 62,887 positioning points collected in three different countries (the United Kingdom, the United States, and India). After map-matching, each mismatched case was examined to identify the primary causes of the mismatches. A number of strategies were developed and applied to reduce the risk of mismatching thus enhancing the tMM algorithm. An independent data set of 5,256 positioning points collected in and around Nottingham, UK, was employed to re-evaluate the performance of the enhanced tMM algorithm. The original tMM algorithm correctly identified the vehicle's position 96.5% of the time; after enhancement this increased to 97.8%. This compares very well with the performance of tMM algorithms reported in the literature. The enhanced tMM algorithm developed in this research is simple, fast, efficient, and easy to implement. Since the accuracy offered by the enhanced algorithm is found to be high, the developed algorithm has potential to be implemented in real-time location-based ITS applications. Copyright © Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Studies applying both revealed and stated preference techniques in the context of aviation noise are extremely rare. This paper combines the results of Stated Choice (SC) and Hedonic Pricing (HP) methods, looking at how noise values change in areas highly exposed to aircraft noise. This is based on a unique implementation of these methods at the same context, namely the Hellenikon Airport closure in Athens. Alimos area is a special case with high aircraft noise exposure (68dBA), considerably higher to its neighbouring areas. The HP models employed a dataset of 2432 house sales from 1995 to 2003. Models were constructed for the period prior to the Hellenikon Airport closure and for the "post-closure" period. The "post-closure" model does not have a significant coefficient for aircraft noise; only Alimos area is subject to a weak continuing depreciation or "stigma". The innovative SC approach is based on experienced change in aircraft noise levels; namely, the total removal of aircraft noise due to the airport closure. The SC experiments were conducted in 2005, providing a dataset of 5600 choices. There are conflicting effects captured by the two methods. SC captures noise tolerance that reduces willingness to pay (WTP) for aircraft noise in Alimos area, compared to neighbouring areas. Conversely, the noise tolerance of the residents is not reflected in the housing market. Moreover, house prices are further penalised in Alimos, implying nonlinearity for the noise depreciation index in this area. These conflicting effects have implications for stated preference applications in extreme noise exposure.

Large reductions of greenhouse gas emissions are required in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Road transport is a significant contributor to UK CO2 emissions, with the majority arising from personal road transport. This paper analyses Personal Carbon Trading (PCT) as a potentially powerful climate change policy tool and presents findings from an exploratory survey of public opinion. A working model of a PCT scheme with a fixed carbon cap was designed to achieve a 60% reduction of CO2 emissions from personal road transport by 2050. A proportion of the annual carbon budget would be given to individuals as a free carbon permit allocation. There is an opportunity to sell unused permits. Fuel price increases (FPI) were recognised as having the potential to achieve an identical emissions target at a much lower cost. A series of individual interviews were conducted to explore opinions related to the impacts, effectiveness, fairness and acceptability of both measures. Bespoke software was used to record behavioural response. The findings indicate that certain design aspects of the PCT scheme led to it being preferred to the FPI and suggest that the potential behavioural response to PCT may be greater than for a FPI. However, given that the sample was small and biased towards the highly educated and those with above average incomes, the findings should be considered as preliminary indications. Further detailed research is required.

The acceptability of existing and potential future aviation taxes in the United Kingdom is explored using a focus group methodology. Focus group participants preferred an independently managed and accountable trust fund to use aviation tax for environmental improvements over the current Air Passenger Duty system. In terms of where additional aviation tax revenues should be spent, there was greatest support for improving United Kingdom surface transport and developing aircraft technology. Participants were tentatively supportive of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme, although would like to see companies within the scheme striving for maximum carbon reductions.

This paper presents an assessment of the performance of the Kickstart and Bus Route Development Grant schemes in England and Scotland which aimed to move marginal or new bus services towards commercial operation. Three key aspects are addressed, namely: the bidding and implementation process; performance against objectives and the future potential of the approach. The evidence suggests that this form of transformational support appears to offer a better return than subsidy that supports the status quo or indeed patronage based support. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Incorporating spatial econometric tools in hedonic pricing (HP) models for environmental valuation has become the standard approach in the literature. The effect of house prices on other house prices is taken into account and usually measured by distance or contiguity in spatial weight matrices. Disaggregate house sale datasets are composed from observations each at a specific location and time. Nevertheless, the symmetric spatial weight matrices commonly employed in HP studies ignore the temporal dimension in disaggregate house sale data. Thus, not only are previous house sales taken to affect subsequent house prices, but so do future house sales. However, information does not travel backwards in time; hence, there is a clear theoretical impossibility of actual future prices affecting current/past prices. Estimates derived from HP models where spatial dependence is incorrectly specified or ignored will exhibit inaccuracies. This article proposes an alternative specification of spatial weights in HP that includes spatial effects on each sale price only from preceding house sales. The temporal aspect of spatial effects is then developed further by specifying a time-decay rate to capture the diminishing effect over time of preceding sale prices to succeeding house prices. This novel specification of spatial weight matrices is shown to have a significant effect on the estimates of house price depreciation from aircraft noise. Monetary values of aircraft noise externality are successfully derived from the HP models for Athens Airport.

This paper describes a methodology which permits optimal strategies for strategic transport models to be found by use of a limited number of model runs together with regression modelling of the resulting response surface. Typically, it will be the case that the number of policy variables is sufficiently large that the strategic model cannot be run for all possible combinations of their levels. Furthermore it can be very difficult to interpret the results from a large number of model runs where there are a lot of policy variables changing levels between runs. The proposed methodology models the response surface specifically in the locality of the optimum, thereby greatly clarifying what policy combinations should be further tested with the strategic model. A case study, for the city of Edinburgh, indicates that this methodology can identify improved strategies compared to conventional methods, even when the number of model runs used are far fewer than with the conventional methods. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Nigeria experiences a perennial shortage of transportation energy despite being the world's eighth largest producer of crude oil and the seventh largest proven reservoir of natural gas. Partly as a result, the Nigerian government proposed the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) as an automotive fuel in 1997 as part of the efforts to harness the country's natural gas resources and address transportation energy challenges. However, the rate of adoption has been very low with natural gas vehicles constituting 0.04% of the national vehicle fleet. This paper presents a stakeholder analysis derived from interviews with senior executives of the leading organisations involved in the energy and transportation sectors in Nigeria. Analysis revealed thirty-one barriers and twenty-six policy proposals that were categorised into eight and four themes respectively. While there is a rarity of agreement across all stakeholder groups, we observed consensus on the suggestion for the removal of the subsidy on petrol and the need for the establishment of a coordinating agency to drive the use of CNG. The paper offers specific recommendations for the reform of the energy and transportation sectors, the introduction of fiscal and operational incentives and the creation of public awareness.

The mandate of the International Commission on Biological Effects of Noise (ICBEN) is to promote a high level of scientific research concerning all aspects of noise-induced effects on human beings and animals. In this review, ICBEN team chairs and co-chairs summarize relevant findings, publications, developments, and policies related to the biological effects of noise, with a focus on the period 2011-2014 and for the following topics: Noise-induced hearing loss; nonauditory effects of noise; effects of noise on performance and behavior; effects of noise on sleep; community response to noise; and interactions with other agents and contextual factors. Occupational settings and transport have been identified as the most prominent sources of noise that affect health. These reviews demonstrate that noise is a prevalent and often underestimated threat for both auditory and nonauditory health and that strategies for the prevention of noise and its associated negative health consequences are needed to promote public health.

The paper reports on an innovative application of stated preference techniques to derive values of aircraft noise by time of day and by day of week. Revealed preference techniques cannot provide such segmentations, which would clearly be of use in policy development, especially relating to airport operations. Given the lack of research on this issue, the work reported herein is highly experimental. Two stated preference experiments were designed. The first focused on a single time period, whilst the second asked respondents to trade between time periods. Both approaches yielded results that are plausible and mutually consistent in terms of relative values by time period. It is concluded that stated preference techniques are particularly useful in this context where the use of aggregated values may lead to non-optimal policy decisions. © 2006 Taylor & Francis.

Data on aircraft noise and annoyance levels were obtained for households in Manchester and Lyon as part of a study investigating the value of noise. Annoyance was assessed on a five point verbal scale consistent with international standards. Noise indices obtained included Leq, Lden, Ldn, NA65 and NA≥0. This data allowed us to look in some detail at levels of annoyance from aircraft noise and influences on levels of annoyance. In this paper we report: • The relative importance of aircraft noise amongst other factors impacting on quality of life • Annoyance from aircraft noise relative to other sources of noise • Reported disturbance of activities and other concerns with respect to aircraft noise • Variations in annoyance levels by time of day • The relationship between annoyance and perceived noise • Models using ordinal regression to explore the relationship between annoyance levels, noise indices and a range of other variables including socio-economic characteristics and contextual variables also self reported exposure to aircraft noise; perceived levels of noise and sensitivity to noise.

Many cities and national authorities have made substantial progress in developing transport strategies to reconcile environmental pressures with the increasing demand for travel. However, there is still some doubt as to what are they key ingredients of a successful strategy and progress in implementing such changes has been slow. Research is needed to better understand what are the essential ingredients to a balanced transport policy, the constraints, which are preventing these from being implemented, and the acceptability of such changes. This paper reports on the outcomes of a project funded under the Rees Jeffreys Road Fund research programme 'From Realism to Reality', which aims to identify the elements necessary for a successful transport policy in the UK into the 21st century. The project seeks to develop a vision for the transport system of the future through an understanding of the extent of the current problems in the transport sector and an examination of the range and effectiveness of options and instruments available to resolve them. The paper examines a range of visions that are currently in the public domain. Results show that there is a degree of consistency in the general aims and objectives of such visions, but that there is rather less consensus in the means proposed to achieve those aims.

The research reported in this paper is based on a hypothetical revealed preference experiment for valuing traffic noise nuisance as perceived in the interior of apartments located in Lisbon. The experiment used both the observed behavior of householders' apartment choices which are designated as the ex ante situation (i.e. before living in the apartment) and a hypothetical choice of apartments located in the same block/lot of the respondent but on a different façade or floor and thus varying in terms of noise exposure. This hypothetical choice occurs after respondents have experienced traffic related noise indoors. Thus addressing a criticism of hedonic pricing models that purchasers do not always have a good understanding of the noise levels they will experience. Results from random parameters logit models indicate the importance of respondents' experience when valuing qualitative attributes such as traffic nuisance. Whereas in the ex ante situation quiet had been mentioned only by a small percentage of the respondents as the most important location factor, in the ex post situation the quiet coefficient was found to be statistically significant. Additionally, the marginal value of quiet for a household located at the quieter façade was around twice as high as for a household in an apartment fronting the main road.

The aim of this paper is to report new evidence relating to residents' valuations of aircraft noise in three countries with an emphasis on a comparison of the valuations obtained using two contrasting approaches. One might be regarded as a standard stated choice approach offering pairwise comparisons of two alternatives characterised by a limited number of attributes. The other choice format adopted is innovative in drawing inspiration from the priority evaluator approach to embed aircraft movements alongside a wide range of other local factors that impact on residents' quality of life. The paper addresses the differences in the results of the two approaches and explores the possible explanations for these variations. Although not conclusive, there is a suspicion that strategic bias may have influenced the results and we urge further research regarding incentives to such bias. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Few studies have applied stated preference methods to the valuation of noise. This paper draws upon the experiences of three studies which have estimated willingness to pay for reductions in road traffic and aircraft noise. Such valuations can be used in the economic appraisal of infrastructure and operating decisions using social cost benefit analysis. The emphasis is upon methodological issues. In particular, this papers covers: the insights obtained by the three studies into the presentation of noise in a survey setting; whether marginal valuations depend on the size and sign of the change in noise levels and the noise level from which variations occur; the impact of socio-economic variables on valuations; and the comparison of the valuations obtained using stated preference methods with those derived using the contingent valuation method.

The key aim of this paper is to examine strategic pathways to low carbon personal transport in Britain and to compare these with the current trajectory of transport policy. A 2050 baseline was established using trend information, forecasts and best evidence from the literature on response to policy intervention. A range of strategies are tested including: technological development, pricing, public transport and soft measures. We conclude that even dramatic technological advance cannot meet the more stringent targets for carbon reduction in the absence of considerable behavioural change. The most promising combinations of measures involve clear price signals to encourage both a reduction in the use of motorised transport and the development and purchase of more efficient vehicles; decarbonisation of public transport and facilitating measures to enhance access whilst reducing the need for motorised travel. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper examines the potential market for natural gas as a transportation fuel in the light commercial vehicle sector in the United Kingdom. In order to understand this market and identify barriers to growth and possible solutions interviews were conducted with a number of professionals with experience in this market. These interviews were open and exploratory enabling the application of grounded theory techniques in analysis. Clear priorities for potential users were cost and carbon reduction and the main constraint a lack of refuelling infrastructure. Small scale and low cost policy interventions were identified, at national level including maintaining tax differentials; easing payload restrictions; and limited support for refuelling facilities alongside local policy initiatives, for example, restoring the exemption from the London Congestion Charge for gas vehicles, that could help to kick-start the market at least at a niche level.

Traffic crashes in Riyadh city cause losses in the form of deaths, injuries and property damages, in addition to the pain and social tragedy affecting families of the victims. In 2005, there were a total of 47,341 injury traffic crashes occurred in Riyadh city (19% of the total KSA crashes) and 9% of those crashes were severe. Road safety in Riyadh city may have been adversely affected by: high car ownership, migration of people to Riyadh city, high daily trips reached about 6 million, high rate of income, low-cost of petrol, drivers from different nationalities, young drivers and tremendous growth in population which creates a high level of mobility and transport activities in the city. The primary objective of this paper is therefore to explore factors affecting the severity and frequency of road crashes in Riyadh city using appropriate statistical models aiming to establish effective safety policies ready to be implemented to reduce the severity and frequency of road crashes in Riyadh city. Crash data for Riyadh city were collected from the Higher Commission for the Development of Riyadh (HCDR) for a period of five years from 1425H to 1429H (roughly corresponding to 2004-2008). Crash data were classified into three categories: fatal, serious-injury and slight-injury. Two nominal response models have been developed: a standard multinomial logit model (MNL) and a mixed logit model to injury-related crash data. Due to a severe underreporting problem on the slight injury crashes binary and mixed binary logistic regression models were also estimated for two categories of severity: fatal and serious crashes. For frequency, two count models such as Negative Binomial (NB) models were employed and the unit of analysis was 168 HAIs (wards) in Riyadh city. Ward-level crash data are disaggregated by severity of the crash (such as fatal and serious injury crashes). The results from both multinomial and binary response models are found to be fairly consistent but the results from the random parameters model seem more reasonable. Age and nationality of the driver, excessive speed, wet road surface and dark lighting conditions and single vehicle crashes are associated with increased probability of fatal crashes. More specifically, the probability of having a fatal crash increases with the age of the driver and Saudi drivers (relative to non-Saudi drivers) are associated with the probability of fatal crashes (relative to serious injury crashes). A crash involving a single vehicle is found to be more severe than a crash involving a multiple vehicles. The results from the frequency models suggest that percentage of non-Saudi found positively associated with serious injury crashes; percentage of illiterate people and the income per capita found to be positively significant with the frequency of fatal and serious injury crashes; and the increased residential, transport, and educational areas of land use is associated with the decreased level of fatal and serious injury crashes occurrences. Based on the findings, a range of countermeasures are proposed to reduce the severity and frequency of traffic crashes in Riyadh city.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges confronting the international community requiring action to achieve deep cuts in carbon emissions. The implementation of potentially uncomfortable but necessary policy measures is, though, critically dependent upon public acceptability. This paper reports a novel application of stated preference techniques to explore the influence of key design attributes on the acceptability of a personal carbon trading scheme in isolation and when compared to a carbon tax. Illustrative forecasts from the models developed indicate the importance of design attributes, especially the basis of the initial permit allocation for personal carbon trading and the use to which revenues are put for carbon tax. Results indicate that the "best" scheme designs could be acceptable to a majority of respondents. © 2010 Elsevier B.V.

Aircraft noise and other environmental externality effects have gained significant public attention in Thailand since Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport opened in 2006. Residential areas around the airport are expanding rapidly and local residents are protesting about the noise and air pollution from the airport. This study employed Stated Choice to elicit willingness-to-pay (WTP) values to reduce aircraft noise and air pollution. The novelty of the research arises from the fact that it explores monetary values of externalities not only for those who suffer from the pollution (residents) but also those who have some responsibility for the externalities that are created (i.e. air passengers). Results indicate that passengers and residents have different priorities in terms of aviation externalities. As might be anticipated, residents place a higher value on aircraft noise nuisance than passengers at 104.76 USD and 70.63 USD per year respectively to halve aircraft noise levels. In terms of air pollution, passengers had a higher WTP at 151.18 USD against residents' WTP of 86.52 USD per year to halve local air pollution created by aircraft. Passengers are willing to pay 41.69 USD per year to offset carbon emissions. The study found that aviation growth at Suvarnabhumi was underestimated and there is an urgent need to implement environmental mitigation policies to address the issue.

Since the late 1960s, the Government of Nigeria has sought both to exploit the country’s natural gas resources and to reduce the environmental impact and economic cost of the gas that is associated with oil production. Key initiatives have included legislation prohibiting gas flaring and venting, the introduction of fiscal incentives for gas utilisation projects, the development of international and regional gas export markets, the promotion of the re-injection of gas in petroleum exploration and production processes, the use of natural gas in power generation and as an industrial feedstock and, more recently in 1997, the proposal to adopt compressed natural gas (CNG) as an automotive fuel. These efforts have yielded mixed results – ranging from the outright failure of legislation to abate gas flaring, as reported in Ogunlowo et al. (2015), to success in becoming a leading exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) (EIA, 2013) and as a supplier of piped natural gas to parts of West Africa (West African Gas Pipeline Company, 2012). In addition, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC, 2016) indicated that around 12% of the associated gas encountered during exploration and production processes in 2016 was re-injected, compared to near zero in 1990. Onolemhemhen et al. (2017) observed that the domestic gas supply obligation introduced in 2008, which mandates oil and gas companies to make a portion of the gas they produce available to the local market, has further boosted national gas utilisation by over 40% between 2008 and 2017. The impact is especially in the power and industrial sectors – evidenced by 23 gas-powered plants, with another two under construction, improved utilisation of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and a resurgence in cement and fertiliser production. Yet, the adoption of CNG as a transportation fuel has been slow, despite the fact that the country continues to experience transportation energy shortages (Ezea, 2018). The country has a natural gas vehicle (NGV) penetration of just 0.1% – that is, 6000 NGVs out of a national fleet of more than six million vehicles (NGV Global, 2017).

In common with many other countries, the UK did not until recently place any monetary value on noise when considering alternative transport policies. This paper describes the approach taken to developing willingness-to-pay based values for noise costs (and benefits) at residential locations, drawing on primary research in the UK and a review of international evidence. The values were introduced into transport appraisal in 2006, and the paper considers the challenges of integrating noise valuation into appraisal, and international comparisons between the resulting UK official values and values used elsewhere. The experience may be useful for other countries considering introducing or revising noise costs in appraisal, and raises research issues over measurement methods, valuation at high noise levels, the threshold level for any significant willingness-to-pay, the relative noise costs of different transport modes, and the role of residential noise in a person's overall noise exposure and response.

Noise and air pollutants share many common sources including traffic volume. Noise pollution causes annoyance and disturbs sleep and it is the second risk factor, after air pollution, to the estimated environmental burden of disease in Europe. It can also act as a proxy for some of the air pollutants, to allow building of holistic view of environmental pollution. During the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns in cities across the world, traffic volumes reduced significantly, leading to reduced pollutant concentrations and noise levels. In this work, we present an analysis of the multiple pollutants (e.g., fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxide) and noise data that are monitored continuously during the lockdown at 15-minute resolution at a school site in the UK, which is situated next to a busy road. This talk will present trends of noise and the air pollutants during the lockdown period, explore possible relationship of noise as a proxy for air pollutants; variations between pollutants and the underlining reasons explaining the temporal variations.

Although stated choice applications to the valuation of transport noise remain novel, there is now a growing body of evidence from which to draw insights into the results and the appropriateness of the methodological approach. This paper draws on available evidence, including four studies by the authors utilising stated choice experiments to value aircraft noise at Lyon, Manchester and Athens airports and road traffic noise in Edinburgh and Lisbon alongside other key studies. The paper examines the extent to which stated choice experiments can provide insights that the more traditional revealed preference approaches cannot, such as exploring variation by time of day and day of week, the influence of socio-economic and attitudinal variables and preferences for policy options based on experience. Challenges in experimental design are also addressed especially with respect to presentation and linkage to objective measures of noise and the degree to which design can reduce incentives to bias.

The U.K. Department of Transport is seeking bids from local government based on the Package Approach, in which a combination of measures is used to achieve transport policy objectives. Many such bids will be based on predictive models, but even recent model developments do not permit every combination of measures to be tested. As a result, optimal solutions may be overlooked. This paper describes a methodology for identifying those strategies which perform best against given objectives using a limited number of model tests. Relationships between policy measures and key indicators of system performance are approximated by relatively simple regression models, whose coefficients are then used to help identify the optimal combination of measures. The paper outlines the development of the approach, using a hypothetical strategic model, PLUTO. It then describes tests of the approach using a strategic model for Edinburgh.

Map-matching (MM) algorithms integrate positioning data from a Global Positioning System (or a number of other positioning sensors) with a spatial road map with the aim of identifying the road segment on which a user (or a vehicle) is travelling and the location on that segment. Amongst the family of MM algorithms consisting of geometric, topological, probabilistic and advanced, topological MM (tMM) algorithms are relatively simple, easy and quick, enabling them to be implemented in real-time. Therefore, a tMM algorithm is used in many navigation devices manufactured by industry. However, existing tMM algorithms have a number of limitations which affect their performance relative to advanced MM algorithms. This paper demonstrates that it is possible by addressing these issues to significantly improve the performance of a tMM algorithm. This paper describes the development of an enhanced weight-based tMM algorithm in which the weights are determined from real-world field data using an optimisation technique. Two new weights for turn-restriction at junctions and link connectivity are introduced to improve the performance of matching, especially at junctions. A new procedure is developed for the initial map-matching process. Two consistency checks are introduced to minimise mismatches. The enhanced map-matching algorithm was tested using field data from dense urban areas and suburban areas. The algorithm identified 96.8% and 95.93% of the links correctly for positioning data collected in urban areas of central London and Washington, DC, respectively. In case of suburban area, in the west of London, the algorithm succeeded with 96.71% correct link identification with a horizontal accuracy of 9.81 m (2σ). This is superior to most existing topological MM algorithms and has the potential to support the navigation modules of many Intelligent Transport System (ITS) services. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Freight transport has been receiving increasing attention in both literature and practice following the growing recognition of its importance in urban transport planning. This paper analyses historical and projected road freight CO2 emissions in the city of London and explores the potential mitigation effect of a set of freight transport policies and logistics solutions. Findings indicate a range of policies with potential to reduce emissions in the period up to 2050. However, this reduction would appear to only be capable of partly counterbalancing the projected increase in freight traffic. More profound behavioural measures therefore appear to be necessary for London's CO2 emissions reduction targets to be met. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cities are faced with a number of sustainability challenges in the context of climate change. There is an urgent need to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cities if ambitious mitigation targets are to be met. Meanwhile, cities are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change unless adaptation plans can be put in place. The need to connect climate change adaptation and mitigation with broader assessment of sustainability is becoming increasingly recognised. This paper describes an urban integrated assessment facility developed by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, which simulates socio-economic change, climate impacts and greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the twenty first century at the city scale. The urban integrated assessment facility adopts a broad-scale systems approach to urban development and sustainability assessment. It incorporates a multi-sectoral model of the regional economy, hierarchical city-scale spatial interaction model and modules for assessment of climate impacts, adaptation options and greenhouse gas emissions. The paper demonstrates how the urban integrated assessment facility quantifies synergies and conflicts between adaptation to climate change and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in order to improve decision making and facilitate the development of portfolios of planning policies that together have a realistic prospect of achieving sustainable outcomes for cities.

This paper reviews transport appraisal methods in use in the countries of the European Union. A key element of the paper is an examination of the range of costs and benefits included in appraisal and the degree of consensus on their measurement and valuation. There is a strong consensus on the treatment of a number of direct impacts, where monetary valuation and inclusion in cost benefit analysis is usual. There is less agreement on the treatment of the environmental and social impacts. Recent developments are in the direction of comprehensive multimodal approaches and a greater use of multi-criteria analysis. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper reports results from two stated preference experiments valuing aircraft noise at Lyon and Manchester airports. It builds on the authors' earlier paper [1] and offers the following key developments. Firstly, re-estimation of the stated preference models based on changes in aircraft movements to changes in Leq to give a value for a unit change in Leq. Secondly the testing of a wide range of socio-economic and situational variables to identify any impact on values of noise. The first stated preference experiment identified only a small number of influential variables, which is viewed as a function of the design. Whilst the second, as expected identified rather more, though still a relatively small number. For the second stated preference experiment the Manchester and Lyon models have a high degree of similarity in that the following variables are significant in both: probability of being at home; annoyance from aircraft noise; household size; income and whether they gave a zero response to the contingent valuation question. Fewer variables were unique to one model.

The concept of user-level integrity monitoring has been successfully applied to air transport navigation systems, where the main focus is on the errors associated with the Global Positioning System (GPS)-data-processing chain. Little research effort has been devoted to the study of integrity monitoring for the case of land vehicle navigation systems. The primary difference is that it is also necessary to consider errors associated with a spatial map and a map-matching (MM) process when monitoring the integrity of a land vehicle navigation system. This is because these two components play a vital role in land vehicle navigation. To date, research has focused on either the integrity of raw positioning data obtained from GPS or the integrity of the MM process and digital map errors. In this paper, these sources of error are simultaneously considered. Therefore, the main contribution of this paper is to report the development of a user-level integrity-monitoring system that concurrently takes into account all the potential error sources associated with a navigation system and considers the operational environment to further improve performance. Errors associated with a spatial road map are given special attention. Two knowledge-based fuzzy inference systems were developed to measure the integrity scale. The performance of the integrity method was assessed using field data collected in Nottingham and London, U.K. The results indicate that the integrity method provides valid warnings 98.2% and 99.4% of the time for positioning data in a mixed operational environment in Nottingham and suburban areas of London, respectively.

Aircraft noise from Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport has been a significant environmental issue since the airport opened in 2006. Residential areas around the airport are expanding rapidly and local residents are protesting about the noise from the new airport. This paper reports on the findings of a preliminary exploration of airline passengers' and airport residents' attitudes towards aircraft noise and other environmental externalities at Suvarnabhumi Airport. Focus groups were conducted in September 2011 with residents and airline passengers to gather the views of the polluters (air passengers) and those experiencing the pollution (residents). The focus groups found that while residents consider the airport brings some socio-economic benefits, it also creates a significant noise nuisance and local environmental burden. Findings from the airline passenger groups, meanwhile, ascertained that passengers are well aware of aviation-related problems and may be willing to pay to offset for the environmental damage their flights cause but they do not trust the transparency of current offsetting processes. A Stated Choice design experiment tested different means of presenting aircraft noise and found that residents favored flight frequencies as a proxy for aircraft noise. The findings from the focus groups informed the design of the main stated choice experiments which will be implemented in 2012.

The "Attitudes to Aircraft Annoyance Around Airports" (5A) pilot study used focus groups and written surveys to investigate aspects of living in the area around airports and to better understand the annoyance felt by such residents at a European level. This exploratory study focused on aircraft noise impact as a key source of annoyance around three airports: Manchester International Airport, Lyon Saint-Exupéry and Bucharest and attempted to identify the importance of noise in relation to other aspects. The questionnaire was designed using stated preference techniques offering a series of hypothetical choices related to changes in frequencies of aircraft movements, during different periods of the day thereby allowing a monetary valuation to be made of one aircraft movement. In order to analyse the annoyance as a function of noise, rather than movements, it was necessary to reliably model noise data for the current situation and for each option in the Stated Preference experiments at each respondent's address. The EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre's ENHANCE tool and the Integrated Noise Model enables aircraft noise to be modelled based on actual recorded radar data. Respondents'attitude could be directly correlated to the noise created by real aircraft events at the place where the respondent experienced them. This did not prove to be possible for Bucharest due to a lack of reliable cartography. The present paper explains the use of the ENHANCE tool in this context and the methods used to determine the values of different indices for each respondent, for all hypotheses, to reach informed conclusions about personal preferences and values concerning the perception of aircraft noise and a valuation of noise and annoyance.

The past two decades have seen an ongoing paradigm shift from noise control to soundscaping, and soundscape approaches have been applied in noise management projects. However, cost-benefit analysis (CBA), which is widely used for economic appraisals of projects that would impact on the sound environment, is still noise-based and residential-location-focused. As a result, benefits of wanted sounds are omitted, and only very limited receiver types and contexts are covered. While there is a wealth of literature on valuing the costs of noise and the benefits of noise reduction little research has been done on soundscape valuation, and consequently there is little evidence on the monetary value of soundscape, which is essential for developing soundscape-based CBA. Starting from the costs of noise this paper will discuss the motivation of soundscape valuation, methodology for primary soundscape valuation research, and the use of soundscape values, to contribute to the development of holistic soundscape CBA.

During the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns, road traffic volumes reduced significantly leading to reduced pollutant concentrations and noise levels. Noise and the air pollution data during the lockdown period and loosening of restrictions through five phases in 2021 are examined for a school site in the UK. Hourly and daily average noise level as well as the average over each phase, correlations between noise and air pollutants, variations between pollutants and underlying reasons explaining the temporal variations are explored. Some strong linear correlations were identified between a number of traffic-sourced air pollutants, especially between the differently sized particulates PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 (0.70 < r < 0.98) in all phases and an expected inverse correlation between Nitrogen Dioxide NO2 and ground-level Ozone O3 (-0.68 < r < -0.78) as NO2 is a precursor of O3. Noise levels exhibit a weak correlation with the measured air pollutants and moderate correlation with meteorological factors, including wind direction, temperature, and relative humidity. There was a consistent and significant increase in noise levels (p < 0.01) of up to 3 dB with initial easing and this was maintained through the remaining phases.

Surveys were conducted amongst residents around Manchester and Lyon Airports which aimed to value the annoyance associated with aircraft movements using stated preference techniques. The use of such methods to value aircraft annoyance is comparatively rare and the results presented here make a significant contribution to the body of empirical evidence. However, the main emphasis is the examination of a number of methodological issues. This has involved the examination of how the monetary valuations of aircraft movements vary according to the measured level of noise and whether thresholds and non-linearities in values are present. Models are also reported which test different noise measurement indices.

This paper presents an historical overview of the development and application of methods to value nuisance from transportation noise. The main focus is on the recent application of stated preference techniques and the additional insights they can offer relative to the more traditional revealed preference approaches. The paper draws on studies undertaken by the author and colleagues to value road traffic noise in Edinburgh and Lisbon; aircraft noise in Manchester, Lyon, Bucharest and Athens and the wider literature. Issues discussed include: the representation of changes in noise levels to respondents; the design of stated preference surveys; the derived values of noise; the determinants of variation in noise values; the potential and actual applications of the values and future opportunities to further develop and apply valuation methods.

The paper reports on the development of UK transport targets for CO2 emissions for 2050. Five key studies containing future carbon emissions scenarios for the UK were used to establish targets for overall reductions in emissions to achieve stabilisation at 550 and 450 ppm of atmospheric CO2. Two approaches were used to consider the proportion of total emissions that would be attributable to transport in the future: 26% of total emissions as now and an increase to 41% of total emissions in line with forecasts. The overall targets and expected contributions from transport were used to derive target emissions for the transport sector to be achieved by 2050, which ranged from 8.2 to 25.8 MtC. Even the weakest of these targets represents a considerable reduction from current emissions levels. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Rail privatization in Britain has led to a division of responsibility for investment between Railtrack (infrastructure) and rolling stock leasing companies and operators (rolling stock). However, public bodies - the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF) and the Office of the Rail Regulator (ORR) - still have a considerable influence. This paper describes the new system and offers a critical analysis of the way it is working, with particular reference to the approach to appraisal put forward by OPRAF in its recent appraisal guide.

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd.The Nigerian government proposed the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) as an automotive fuel in 1997 as part of the initiatives to harness natural gas (NG) resources but progress has been slow. This paper examines the natural gas vehicle (NGV) implementation approaches and outcomes in seven countries with diverse experiences in order to gain an understanding of the barriers to the NGV market development in Nigeria. The analysis employs hermeneutic principles to secondary data derived from academic literature, published reports from a variety of international agencies, grey literature, and text from online sources and identifies eight success factors for NGV market development namely: strategic intent, legal backing, learning and adaptation, assignment of responsibilities, financial incentives, NG pricing, consumer confidence, and NG infrastructure. The paper concludes that the principal impediment to NGV market development in Nigeria is the uncoordinated implementation approach and that greater government involvement is required in setting strategic goals, developing the legal and regulatory frameworks, setting of clear standards for vehicles and refuelling stations as well as assigning responsibilities to specific agencies. Short-term low cost policy interventions identified include widening the existing NG and gasoline price gap and offering limited support for refuelling and retrofitting facilities.

This paper explores the limited evidence on the way students perceive, rate, use and value restorative spaces on campus. In the UK alone 2.5 million students study each year in UK Higher Education Institutions. Yet surprisingly little research has been undertaken on the perceptions, preferences and needs of students for restorative space on campus. This paper reviews the evidence with a particular focus on audio and visual stimuli. We then report empirical investigations of the noise climate and quality of restorative space at the University of Bradford and Loughborough University. The vast majority of respondents agreed that they need such space on campus and that it can affect academic performance. Noise levels can be very high in internal spaces that are heavily used but may be susceptible to interventions. Students can identify locations that they feel are restorative and have some interesting perspectives on what such space should sound like. Their main priorities for such space tend to be the basics with seating scoring highest in both samples. There is a preference for internal spaces with greenery and water features over those without. The CVM experiment suggests that there is willingness to pay for quieter and greener environments amongst some students. Clearly such space is seen as important and has a value to students.

Purpose To examine the cost-effectiveness of UK government policy with respect to the mitigation of carbon emissions from the transport sector. Methodology/approach Existing policy as set out by the Department for Transport in Low Carbon Transport: A Greener Future is examined. This document elaborates a Low Carbon Transport Strategy intended to achieve annual emissions savings of 17.7 MtCO2 by 2020. A wide range of policy areas where further action could be taken to reduce carbon emissions are examined and their cost-effectiveness considered. Findings Measures that influence behaviour including smarter choices, eco-driving across modes, freight best practice and modest price increases are highly cost-effective. More cost-effective routes to saving 17.7 MtCO2 are identified, as are further cost-effective savings. Originality/value It appears that government targets could be delivered and indeed exceeded at lower cost than the Low Carbon Transport Strategy. However, policy development is influenced by a wide range of factors which help to explain why cost-effective measures are not always fully exploited.

This paper reports the first meta-analysis and most extensive review of stated preference studies of transportation noise nuisance. The meta-analysis is based on a newly compiled data set of 258 values from 49 studies and 23 countries and spanning more than 40 years. Contrast this with the most extensive meta-analysis of the more conventional hedonic pricing approach which includes 53 noise valuations. Moreover, the sample compares favourably with the 444 observations from the very first meta-analysis of the value of travel time savings which is by far the most widely examined parameter in transport planning. A particularly significant finding of the study is that the intertemporal income elasticity is close to one, somewhat larger than the cross-sectional income elasticity typically obtained from individual studies. This demonstrates the importance of distinguishing the effects of income variations that occur over time, which tend to drive policy, from variations across individuals at one point in time, and such findings are typical of those observed in other markets. Importantly, the values derived are transferable across countries and may be used to benchmark existing evidence and provide values in contexts where none exist. Other key results are that values for aircraft noise exceed those for other modes, whilst those exposed to higher noise levels and those who are highly annoyed also have higher values in line with expectations. A wide range of design effects were tested but few were significant and these included the consumer surplus measure, the representation of noise and the context.

Urban goods distribution has gained in importance in recent years since its optimization not only has the potential to increase productivity and operational efficiency but also to achieve broader goals related to the reduction of externalities including congestion, accidents, noise, air pollution and CO2 emissions. The focus of this paper is to explore the costs and benefits related to freight trams and appraise, by means of a cost benefit analysis a hypothetical freight tram scheme in the centre of Barcelona, to identify the factors that critically influence the potential success or failure of such schemes and to examine through sensitivity testing ways of improving performance. Thus, this paper aims to enhance our understanding of the potential for freight trams to contribute to mitigating a range of transport externalities. Two freight tram scenarios were developed for detailed investigation: the first for retail deliveries and the second for domestic waste collection. Cost benefit analysis (CBA) was carried out based on the best available public domain information and with clearly specified assumptions. The waste tram scenario yields a high Net Present Value (NPV) and rapid return on investment due to the low set up costs and significant operating cost savings. On the other hand, in the initial specification, the retail delivery tram has a very negative NPV due to high initial investment costs and annual costs exceeding annual benefits. Sensitivity tests indicate that both the initial infrastructure costs and the costs and efficiency levels of the consolidation centres are critical to the performance of a freight tram.

This paper reviews and critically assesses procedures which have been adopted to evaluate Advanced Transport Telematics (ATT) projects. The importance of such a review at this juncture stems from the changing position of ATT in transport planning. ATT is no longer simply a field for experimentation, where technical feasibility and user acceptance are dominant concerns. Rather it is a potential mainstream contributor to the functioning of road transport systems. For this reason, ATT project appraisal needs to be developed to the same form, level of sophistication and consistency as the appraisal of conventional transport infrastructure investment. Based on the review set out here, we argue that appropriate methods have not yet been established which, in turn, poses a number of challenging questions, since current socio-economic evaluation procedures are not directly suited to either measuring or evaluating many of the impacts which ATT schemes are implemented to achieve.

This paper reports analysis of pooled data from stated preference experiments conducted in the vicinity of Lyon and Manchester airports. The study focus was to derive values for aircraft noise disturbance, to explore the variation in individual values and to identify key influential variables. The research presented here aims to shed light on the factors that influence the values of aircraft noise in the vicinity of airports.

The value of noise is often estimated as a constant percentage of house price depreciation per decibel of noise. We examine this assumption and determine to what extent self-selection influences noise values from spatial Hedonic Pricing (HP) and Stated Choice (SC) approaches, exploring key aspects of noise valuation, such as non-linearities, thresholds and stigma. The HP models show non-linear house price depreciation per decibel of aircraft noise, increasing from 0.40% per decibel at 45 decibel to 2.38% at 75 decibel. HP models applied after the total removal of aviation noise show one specific area, with significantly higher long- Term exposure to aircraft noise, to be subject to noise "stigma" or unalleviated noise depreciation. SC noise values in the same "noisy" area are considerably lower than neighbouring areas, attributed to self-selection and the resulting higher noise tolerance of local residents. The HP results show that the housing market does not reflect this increased noise tolerance of the residents. However, the nonlinearity of the HP noise values reflects the self-selection effects for observations with high aviation noise, and self-selection can also remain as a localised stigma after the removal of the effect. These findings have implications for stated preference applications and the representation of noise costs in policy.

Road user charging is typically associated with urban contexts, however, congestion at rural attractions is of increasing concern and road user charging may be considered as a suitable policy instrument. This paper investigates the issue of rural road pricing and presents the results of a survey of car-based visitors to Upper Wharfedale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, which explores the potential impacts on mode and destination choice of a road user charging scheme, combined with a park and ride alternative. The scheme was found to be acceptable to 68% of the respondents, with nearly half opting to park and ride. The results are of particular interest in the light of the 1998 Transport White Paper that encourages pilot road user charging schemes in rural areas. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper reports findings from a study that explored the relationships between the quality of life and road traffic noise in Kunming city, Yunnan Province of China. There were three main objectives: to explore residents' views of quality of life in Kunming city; to identify the perceived impacts of road traffic noise on local residents; and to identify the monetary cost of noise. The results indicate that of seventeen quality of life indicators explored road traffic noise is the greatest source of dissatisfaction. Findings from stated preference experiments suggest that respondents are willing to pay to reduce noise levels and that a quiet environment may be valued more highly than cleaner air, reduced accident rates or improved orderliness.

Transport is currently responsible for around one-quarter of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the United Kingdom, and this proportion is projected to increase. The transport sector will undoubtedly need to play a significant role in achieving carbon reductions if the government is to meet its ambitious long-term goal of a 60% reduction by 2050. This article examines current carbon use by households for personal land-based transport and considers how feasible it would be to change that use over the period up to 2050 in the United Kingdom. It provides a unique insight into how much and in what way households and individuals may be willing to adapt their transport behavior to achieve carbon reductions. A computer-based transport carbon calculator was developed to investigate the CO2 emissions of individual households from various modes based on travel diary information. This formed the focus of a series of interactive interviews in which participants were asked to consider how their future low carbon transport strategy could look. Views of households on various abatement measures were explored, including technological change in vehicle design or fuel source and behavioral change through, for instance, traffic restraint and investment in public transport. Overall, a 40% reduction in carbon emissions was seen to be feasible through a combination of behavioral change measures and a realistically achievable degree of technological improvement, falling well short of the UK government's goal of a 60% reduction. Through changes in behavior alone, the households involved could only achieve around a 20% cut in carbon emissions —seemingly a threshold beyond which further reductions will be difficult and may necessitate significant lifestyle change.

The past two decades have seen an ongoing paradigm shift from noise control to soundscaping, and soundscape approaches have been applied in noise management projects. However, cost-benefit analysis (CBA), which is widely used for economic appraisal of projects that would impact on the sound environment, remains noise-based and residential-location-focused. As a result, benefits of wanted sounds are omitted from appraisal. While there is a wealth of literature seeking to place a value/cost on changes in noise exposure, little research has been done on soundscape valuation. Consequently, there is little evidence on the monetary value of soundscape, which is essential for developing soundscape-based CBA. This paper initiates a systematic discussion on this emerging topic, by addressing ten questions covering the definition and scope for soundscape valuation, potential valuation methods for primary soundscape valuation research and required data, special concerns on private and public contexts, non-monetary valuation and soundscapes of cultural and/or historical significance, and the eventual application of soundscape values in CBA and beyond. Answers are based on reflection of existing literature on environmental valuation and soundscape, and visionary opinions by the authors from research, practice and policy sectors, and can help establish a framework to support future research in soundscape valuation and relevant areas. •The needs for soundscape valuation are explained and scope suggested.•Potential valuation methods for soundscape valuation are compared.•Data requirements, social and non-monetary values, and special soundscapes are also discussed.•Applications of soundscape values for cost-benefit analysis and beyond are suggested.