There are no time series on the development of total noise costs in Germany, but some estimations mostly on traffic noise exist. Usually these include the depreciation of real estate or loss of rents (partly based on willingness-to-pay-approaches) that are used to monetize the nuisance, pollution reactions and partly health costs, which are calculated separately.
Noise costs per person or per ton kilometers are calculated on the basis of the UBA’s methodological convention (“Methodenkonvention 2.0 zur Schätzung von Umweltkosten” , annex B) to estimate time series:
Noise costs in euro per 1.000 person kilometre (pkm) or ton kilometre (tkm) respectively:
Road Rail
Person transport Car: 4,8 1,7
Bus:2,2
freight transport Bus:6,8 0,8
These cost estimations are multiplied with the annual traffic volume of road and rail in the respective category (source of traffic data: DIW: Verkehr in Zahlen: Personenverkehrsleistung in Mrd. Pkm, Güterverkehrsleistung in Mrd. tkm).
There is a lack of reliable and regular data on the noise exposure of the population. However, the components is a first attempt to integrate a largely underestimated ecological problem into a quantitative welfare measure of a country.