Volpe Center: Volpe Center Highlights

Information Resources

Volpe Center Highlights - July/August 2000

Director's Notes

Supporting Safe Air Transportation

Welcome to this special edition of the Volpe Center Highlights focusing on our work for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). As we celebrate our 30th anniversary, it is appropriate to recall that the FAA has been a key customer of the Center since our inception and continues to be a major sponsor today. Together we work to ensure that when you fly in the United States, you are traveling on the safest, most efficient form of transportation available.

The Volpe Center's Office of Traffic and Operations Management performs a significant share of the FAA work. However, critical and important FAA programs are being conducted in every directorate office. While limited space here precludes a comprehensive listing of our FAA work, I do want to highlight some of the key programs we have worked on in the past as well as work that we are doing today for the FAA.

Strategic Systems Planning. We are supporting a joint partnership between FAA and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Termed "Vision of the Transportation System After Next," this project's goal is to establish a vision and performance goals for transportation for 25 to 50 years into the future. This effort will consider possible future lifestyles and key trends (e.g., demographic, economic, political, and technological) and how these factors will drive mobility requirements, supply, and demand. From this information, we will then see how transportation might meet some of these requirements through a systems approach using key concepts and technologies.

Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS). We are applying our extensive CNS background and experience to develop new communication and surveillance systems and to improve existing ones; to analyze, design, and develop advanced surface surveillance systems and associated airport infrastructure; to develop and maintain systems that support the business functions related to telecommunications management and operations; and to provide telecommunications services ranging from strategic program planning to network design to field deployment. Our work on the Runway Incursion Reduction Program is receiving national visibility as we help the FAA address its current number one priority. Perhaps our most well-known activity for the FAA is our development and operation of the Traffic Management System, which is the operational system used by the FAA to predict, detect, and handle airspace congestion problems.

Aviation Safety. Aviation is a growth industry. Each year, more and more people are flying. New aircraft, both large and small, are being added to fleets around the world. Costs are also rising for labor and for fuel. In this dynamic environment, the FAA needs to remain vigilant to ensure that aviation safety is not compromised. Approximately 3,000 inspectors in the Flight Standards Service examine airlines, flight schools, training centers, repair stations, air personnel, designees, and aircraft to ensure their compliance with the regulations. We support the FAA Flight Standards Service by designing, building, implementing, and maintaining information systems that assist the aviation safety inspectors in their day-to-day activities. These systems record the results of inspector activity, changes in airline fleets, and work done by designees, and indicate when an entity such as an airline, aircraft type, repair station, or flight school is deviating from the norm, thereby warranting special attention.

Human Factors. Human error remains the most important contributing factor in aviation accidents and incidents, and we continue to increase the growing body of knowledge in this area, especially human factors affecting air traffic controllers. A key component in an air traffic controller's work is his/her display screen. Volpe researchers have conducted a study on the use of color in air traffic displays, and have developed guidelines for this area.

Physical and Information Security. We have contributed significantly to the physical and information security of critical national transportation systems including the National Airspace System. The Volpe Center has developed information security plans, policies, assessments, and remediation designs for many key systems such as a security plan for the Traffic Management System and a telecommunications security risk management plan.

Aircraft Noise Measurement, Modeling, and Analysis. Between 1982 and 1999, $4.3 billion was spent on noise-mitigation activities at U.S. airports. Our research in this area focuses on the design, development, maintenance, and documentation of the FAA's Integrated Noise Model, which is used for modeling noise in the vicinity of airports worldwide and for guiding noise-related decisions at U.S. airports. The Volpe staff is prepared to respond rapidly to aircraft noise issues that may arise throughout the country. We also have played a significant role in examining noise in our national parks resulting from increasing numbers of aviation operations in recent years.

Policy, Planning, and Economic Analysis. We have supported the FAA in conducting studies that have addressed a cross section of policy, planning, and economic topics. In the past, the Volpe Center has worked on the development of national airport capacity enhancement plans, led assessments of the economic and market potential of new air transportation services such as civil tilt rotor aircraft, examined the competitiveness of the domestic aircraft manufacturing industry and levels of competition and service within the domestic airline industry, and conducted planning reviews on landside and airport access and egress issues.

The Volpe Center is looking forward to its continued partnership with the FAA in efforts to enhance safety, improve security, and increase the efficiency of air travel throughout the 21st Century.

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