Results from the 5A project (Attitudes to Aircraft Annoyance Around Airports) founded by EUROCONTROL, the European organisation for the safety of air navigation.The aim of the project was to gain a greater understaniding of how residents perceive and value annoyance from aircraft noise. A largescale social survey including innovative application of stated preferencetechniques to value noise and an extensive range of questions on socio-economic characteristics of respondents and their responses to noise from aircraft and other sources was conducted.As the EU moves towards a standardisation of noise measures and with the underlying principle of common standards across the community it becomes increasingly important to understand variation in annoyance levels within and between countries.The survey worktook place at the end of 2002 around the three airports at Bucharest, Lyon and Manchester, achieving a total sample size of 647 respondents.A common methodology was used at each airport with the aims of achieving a controlled comparison of attitudes and valuations across countries and permitting identification of any heterogeneity across locations.The process of introduction of competition in the public transport sector in the Netherlands shows a mixed picture.The new law has created a good framework.In the implementation, however, some barriers can be identified.Partly these barriersare not unique for the Netherlands: the opposition from unions and local authorities and the slow progress in introduction of competition in markets served by municipal owned rail systems is found in many countries.Other barriers are more unique, like the limited risks at the level of the localand regional authorities and the implications of a national ticket and tariff system.The process of introducing competition is halfway and is now under evaluation.For the covering entry of this conference please see ITRD E132365.
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