Pricing a highway's noise and elevation

One of the first large-scale applications of remote-sensing LIDAR data to value a community disamenity — the effect of highway elevation and traffic noise on home sales along Interstate-395 in Jacksonville, Florida.

CORRIDOR

I-395, Jacksonville FL

DATA

LIDAR point cloud

SUBJECT

Noise + elevation

The challenge

Traffic noise and an elevated roadway degrade the homes around them — but "noise" is not something a deed records. To measure its effect on value, the disamenity first had to be turned into a hard, per-property number that a model could use.

Our approach

LIDAR surfaces. The point cloud reconstructed roadway elevation and line-of-sight for every parcel in the corridor.
Modeled noise. Elevation, distance and barriers fed a propagation model that assigned each home a decibel band.
Hedonic estimation. With noise as a controlled variable, the model isolated its marginal effect on sale price.

Findings

Modeled noise band	Estimated value discount
Under 55 dB	−1%
55 – 60 dB	−3%
60 – 65 dB	−5%
65 – 70 dB	−8%
70 dB and above	−12%

The value discount climbed steeply with modeled noise, reaching roughly 12% in the loudest, most exposed band. LIDAR made a subjective nuisance into a defensible, dollar-denominated variable.

Figures are illustrative of the study's structure and results. Full methodology and data provenance available on request.