Rail freight vibration impacts sleep and community response: An overview of CargoVibes

The European Union funded project: CargoVibes involving ten partners from eight nations has aimed to examine ground-borne vibration affecting residents close to freight railway lines. The paper presents an overview of the work package investigating human response to vibration, with particular focus on physiological and psychological impact on sleep, community annoyance and the development of guidance in evaluating response. Existing field studies of community response were supplemented with further field work in the Netherlands and Poland, and a meta-analysis conducted to determine dose-response relationships for railway vibration. The effects of vibration on sleep were measured in a series of laboratory trials at the University of Gothenburg. Numerous outcomes of vibration exposure were found, with physiological markers such as greater heart rate response and cortical reactions during sleep, and annoyance and sleep disturbance increasing with higher vibration amplitudes. A guidance document considering current state of the art regarding vibration measurement and assessment was produced pertaining to human perception, evaluation methods, annoyance, sleep impacts, and non-exposure factors. The outcomes of this work represent a significant advance in the understanding of the human response to railway vibration and a step towards a much needed harmonization of assessment methods. The findings presented in this paper highlight the importance of considering environmental vibration in the planning, construction, and maintenance of railways in residential environments.