Schiphol enigma: Less noise, more complaints

Illustration: Auke Herrema

Why do some people complain about aircraft noise while their neighbours do not? Dr Maarten Kroesen discovered that mistrust and loss of control intensify the impact of noise.

While the number of people subjected to aircraft noise around Schiphol airport has decreased over the past decades, the number of complaints has increased. Dr Maarten Kroesen, from the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, was intrigued and wanted to solve this Schiphol enigma. His PhD thesis shows why some people regard noise as a hindrance while others don’t.

“When you say the annoyance is all in one’s head, people think you accuse them of posing the problem,” says Kroesen. “Instead of that, I want to make people’s experience more objective, as something to be reckoned with.”
The psychological basis for his research comes from Christian Bröer (University of Amsterdam) who argues that people give a certain meaning to aircraft noise. This significance depends on, among other things, people’s attitude towards Schiphol (‘engine of the economy’) and the environment (‘aviation is a threat to environment’). Kroesen conducted a survey on people’s attitudes and thus provided a quantitative backing for Bröer’s theory. About a third of the respondents were very supportive of Schiphol (and unlikely to make complaints about aircraft noise), while a quarter of the total were environmentally orientated, although they did accept Schiphol’s economic importance.

Kroesen discovered that two factors especially govern human response to aircraft noise: mistrust and control. Mistrust has grown over the years as noise limits were repeatedly surpassed and consequently adjusted. “People got the feeling that the economy wins out every time.” Thus people lose faith in surveys, in noise calculations and in the government, which doesn’t adhere to its own noise limits. “Overrunning noise limits is a case for the courts,” says Kroesen, “not for Parliament.”

Also, people tend to complain more about things they do not have control over. Giving people a say in how to insulate their homes from noise might improve that, Kroesen advises.

Dr Maarten Kroesen, ‘Human Response to Aircraft Noise’, 9 June 2011, PhD supervisor Prof. Bert van Wee.