Valuing Aircraft Noise: Stated Choice Experiments Reflecting Inter-Temporal Noise Changes from Airport Relocation

The relocation of Athens Airport provided a rare experimental context in which residents experienced significant changes in noise levels due to the introduction or removal of aircraft noise. This paper reports the results from surveys around both airport locations, using stated choice experiments to estimate values for aircraft noise. The respondents were offered actual inter-temporal noise change scenarios rather than hypothetical variations, which is uncommon in the literature, incorporating the presence or absence of an airport and other relevant transport attributes that also changed with the airport relocation. Whilst there is some variation in the valuation of the airport closure and opening, when these values are adjusted to reflect the actual change in decibels, there is remarkably little difference between the old and new airports. However, a significant variation in aircraft noise values is identified between different areas, with respect to education and to a lesser extent income. Our preferred estimate of the monthly household willingness to pay for terminating aircraft noise exposure is 13.12€ and for avoiding the onset of aircraft noise is 9.53€.