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Volpe Center Highlights - March/April 2006SecurityLetter from the Director |
Focus |
Safety |
Security |
Published and Presented 
Predicting Transportation Disease Migration (CDC/AFMIC)Transportation has always been a factor in the spread of disease, but the scope of today's aviation system compounds the challenge of tracking and preventing disease migration for agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (AFMIC). The Volpe Center recently delivered prototype software to these agencies that improves the analysis of air traffic patterns contributing to disease transmission. CDC's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine is using the Transportation Disease Migration Operational Prototype to prepare for potential pandemic events and to respond to disease outbreaks. The software is designed to enable users to estimate air passenger movements to improve understanding of and response to potential and actual disease migration. It includes a web interface for querying an aircraft flight database by flight, city, country, or continent regions, and for maintaining CDC's Travelers' Health Notices. Batch processing software populates the database with both historic and current flight data in conjunction with extensive geographic, airport, and aircraft reference tables. The historic and current data were supplied by two Volpe Center divisions from systems they developed for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) (with the permission of the sponsors). The Environmental Measurement and Modeling Division provided the historic data from FAA's System for Assessing Aviation Global Emissions, and the Automation Applications Division provided the current data from FAA's Enhanced Traffic Management System. The software was designed and developed by the Program Manager, Ms. Ruth Hunter, National Expert in Logistics and Emergency Management, of the Safety Information Systems Division, and Mr. Richard Wright, National Expert in Traffic Management and Information Systems, of the Environmental Measurement and Modeling Division, supported by Ms. Judy Hou and Mr. Ben Lu of the TRIPS on-site Technical Support Contract led by Computer Sciences Corporation. A Volpe Center team designs training for USPS employees in identifying and handling both declared and undeclared HAZMAT in the mail stream.
Managing HAZMAT in the Mail (USPS)One of the greatest challenges facing the United States Postal Service (USPS) is the control of hazardous materials (HAZMAT), both declared and undeclared, in the mail stream. For several years, the Volpe Center has been supporting the USPS Aviation Security Group's HAZMAT Program in keeping the mail safe from potential impacts of HAZMAT and other restricted materials. Many potentially hazardous or restricted materials are common household items, such as cosmetics, cleaning supplies, aerosols, and alcoholic beverages. Accordingly, efforts include promoting HAZMAT awareness among USPS customers as well as USPS personnel in all functional areas of acceptance, handling and processing, tendering, dispatch, and delivery. A significant portion of the Volpe Center's support includes developing and conducting HAZMAT awareness training, and preparing instructional materials and standard operating procedures. The Volpe Center team designs training to instruct postal employees in proper procedures for both accepting and handling mailable HAZMAT, as well as procedures to identify and handle restricted and undeclared non-mailable HAZMAT that is improperly commingled in the mail stream. Training materials and approaches are tailored to the requirements of each functional area. Dissemination approaches range from conducting end-user and train-the-trainer classes to employing training videos and web-based classes. More than 1.5 million hours of training have been presented to more than 1 million USPS personnel since FY2000. HAZMAT training is updated and reissued on a regular basis. This fiscal year, new function-specific training was developed and is being disseminated to approximately 500,000 processing, delivery, and retail personnel using a tiered approach. In this approach, the Volpe Center trains designated postal employees who in turn train groups of employees. In 2006, the Center has conducted a 16-hour, train-the-trainer class to 500 USPS processing employees; an 8-hour coordinator training class to 180 USPS delivery/retail operations coordinators; and additional training to 120 USPS Mail Recovery Center employees. Additional web-based training classes are being developed for dissemination in FY2007. Mr. Mark Raney of the Environmental Engineering Division is the Volpe Center project manager; he is supported by Mr. Paul Kudarauskas, also of the Division. |
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