HUMAN FACTORS
HOME

WHAT'S NEW

MISSION

CAPABILITIES

STAFF

PRODUCTS

PUBLICATIONS
AND PAPERS

PROJECTS:

AVIATION

RAILROADS

ROADWAY

OTHER MODES

Volpe Role

EFB Home | Volpe Role | Volpe EFB Reports and Publications | Online EFB Reports and Articles

While the promise of EFBs is great, government regulators, potential customers, and industry developers all agree that EFBs raise many human factors considerations that must be handled appropriately in order to realize this promise without adverse effects. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently issued an updated Advisory Circular for EFBs (AC120-76A) in which many of these issues are raised. FAA Aircraft Certification and Flight Standards worked together so the AC covers both issues related to the installation of an EFB system in the aircraft, and its use by the flight crew.

To support development of the EFB Advisory Circular, the FAA first asked the Volpe Center to identify EFB human factors considerations for EFBs back in 1998. One result of this effort is a comprehensive document released in September 2000 titled Human Factors Considerations in the Design and Evaluation of Electronic Flight Bags Version 1: Basic Functions. This document is referenced in the EFB AC. It covers general system considerations, and considerations for three specific EFB applications: electronic documents, electronic checklists, and flight performance calculations. Much of the human factors guidance in the FAA EFB AC originated in this document.

The Version 1 Volpe EFB document has subsequently been updated significantly. The final Version 2 report, titled Human Factors Considerations in the Design and Evaluation of Electronic Flight Bags (EFBs) Version 2, is now available, and this document supersedes the September 2000 document. Like the earlier report, the updated document contains information for FAA evaluators, system designers/manufacturers and operators about the many EFB human factors considerations that need to be addressed during the design and evaluation. Industry comments obtained on the Version 1 report were incorporated into this release. As a result, the guidance in Version 2 report is more comprehensive and detailed throughout. The new document also contains a chapter on electronic charts, and EFB Industry Snapshot (Appendix A), and a Summary of Equipment Requirements and Recommendations (Appendix B).

Our next step is to develop evaluation tools and an evaluation procedure for EFBs that are based on the larger document. The tools and procedures will be designed for use by inspectors to evaluate EFB human factors considerations in the field. For example, Appendix B in the Version 2 document could be used as a design and evaluation tool simply by tracking the status of each listed item. Progress on this effort is reported in an October 2003 conference paper. The tools and procedure that are generated from this effort will be included in a final report due out in summer 2004.

For this step, Volpe is seeking volunteer vendors that would be interested in allowing us to test candidate evaluation procedures on their EFB. (For further information on this effort, contact Divya Chandra at chandra@volpe.dot.gov.)

Return to Top