What is ISO/TS 15666 about?
ISO/TS 15666 specifies provides specifications for socio-acoustic surveys and social surveys which include questions on noise effects (referred to hereafter as “social surveys”). It includes questions to be asked, response scales, key aspects of conducting the survey and reporting the results.
ISO/TS 15666 concerns only the questions on noise annoyance used in a social survey and the most important additional specifications needed to accomplish a high level of comparability with other studies.
Who is ISO/TS 15666 for?
ISO/TS 15666 on the assessment of noise annoyance by surveys is relevant to:
- Acoustical engineers
- Social surveyors
- Consultancies
- Hearing and speech scientists
- Physicists
- Environmental policy makers
Why should you use ISO/TS 15666?
Acoustics is an efficient way to monitor noise annoyance in your surroundings and mitigate risks. ISO/TS 15666 thus standardizes the measurement of environmental noise.
ISO/TS 15666 is beneficial as it prevents excessive reverberation and loudness inside occupied spaces. The first goal of this acoustic standards is to reduce excessive reverberation and loudness.
With ISO/TS 15666, you can access specifications for the assessment of noise annoyance by social and socio-acoustic surveys. When these specifications are met, the statistically relevant possibilities of comparing and pooling survey results will be increased, thus offering more and better-quality information for use by environmental policy makers.
What’s changed since the last update?
PD ISO/TS 15666:2021 supersedes DD ISO/TS 15666:2003, which is withdrawn.
The main changes compared with the previous edition are as follows:
- A relaxation of the requirement to ask both the 5-point verbal scale and the 11-point numerical scale. Both questions can still be asked but guidance has been provided about the advantages and disadvantages of each scale to aid question choice in situations where only one question will be asked
- Clarification regarding assumptions that the question covers a 24 h period (day, evening and night) and the indoor and outdoor home environment
- Additional guidance has been added in Clause 6 describing the conventional cut-offs to define “highly” annoyed” for the 5-point verbal scale and the 11-point numerical scale, to enable comparisons between different surveys and contexts
- Updated references