Transportation Noise Effects on Physical and Mental Health and their Corresponding Mitigation Strategies in Europe

Transportation noise is a pervasive environmental pollutant that has significant implications for physical and mental health, particularly in urban areas. This scoping review summarizes the long-term health effects of transport noise from road, rail, and aircraft sources and evaluates available mitigation strategies in Europe.

Using the Reporting Standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses (ROSES), we identified 74 peer-reviewed articles from Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar in order to assess health impacts of noise and the available strategies for mitigating them.

Most studies encompassed European regions via multicountry datasets. The findings support the well-known impacts of noise on human health, including cardiovascular disease, increased blood pressure, annoyance, sleep disturbance, and evidence of adverse mental performance and cognitive impairment outcomes related to noise. Vulnerable populations, such as children and the elderly, are disproportionately affected. Mitigation strategies are subdivided into categories of source, propagation, and exposure. Propagation strategies, such as acoustic barriers and vegetation belts report 8-12 A-weighted decibel (dB(A)) and 2.5-8.5 dB(A) reduction, while source reductions of traffic optimization (1-3.5 dB(A)) and calming (1-5 dB(A)) are lower. Mitigation strategies addressing physical effects primarily focus on source, propagation, and planning measures, whereas strategies targeting mental effects emphasize exposure reduction, such as soundproofing and improvements to the immediate environment through greenery.

Gaps remain in understanding the cumulative effects of multimodal noise exposure, gender-specific responses, and the integration of objective health measures. The scoping review highlights the potential and urgent need for integrated, proactive noise mitigation strategies in spatial and urban planning.