A stated choice experiment: valuing aircraft noise in the context of the Athens Airport relocation.

The Athens International Airport relocation took place in 2001, Hellenikon Airport was closed and Eleftherios Venizelos (EV) Airport was opened. Inthis context, a Stated Choice experiment is employed in order to achieve the main research objective of aircraft noise valuation and to provide insight into people's attitude towards aircraft noise annoyance in different physical (exposure to noise or not) and psychological (the perception of having an airport in operations nearby or not) situations. The airport relocation offers a unique context in which to study the impacts of aircraft noise. The uniqueness of this study is underlined by the following three issues: Firstly, the respondents have experienced the noise changes offered in the experiment. None of the SP studies published on aircraft noise havelooked at a case, where respondents have experienced the changes in noiselevels, offered in the SP experiments. Secondly, the situation also allows an exploration of the extent to which strategic bias may impact noise values in areas heavily exposed to aircraft noise. Thirdly, this study adds to the few SP Studies that are published on Aircraft Noise valuation. Values of around 12 /month per household for complete removal of aircraft noise seem to be consistent both in the improvement (Hellenikon Airport, H5 Experiment) and the deterioration (EV) situations. A potential bias issue in Artemis, an area with high aircraft noise exposure, was identified. Thiswill be explored in latter stages of this research, when the actual aircraft noise levels in decibels for each interview location are introduced. After overcoming problems in the income data, an income elasticity of 0.45 was recovered. A range of socioeconomic and attitudinal effects were foundto influence the SC experiments and the values they produced. Key influential variables to aircraft noise annoyance are: the area of residency; personal perceptions of overall noise and aircraft noise levels; residing in a rented house; considering the Airport closure negative. For the coveringabstract see ITRD E135582.