Volpe Center Year in Review 2008
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Safety Management Systems
The Safety Management Systems COI anticipates and responds to challenges in safety management for all modes of transportation, addressing highly complex safety requirements. It acquires, maintains, distributes, and analyzes transportation safety data to enable the Federal government, states, municipalities, nongovernmental organizations, and industry to take effective actions to reduce the number and severity of transportation-related deaths, injuries, and instances of property damage.
Flight Standards Service Staffing Model
The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) Office of Flight Standards Service (AFS) helps to ensure the flight safety of civil aircraft in air commerce. Through certification standards-setting and oversight activities, the AFS directs, manages, and executes certification and inspection. It also oversees surveillance activities to ensure the adequacy of flight procedures and operating methods, appropriate operator qualifications and proficiency, proper aircraft maintenance, and maintenance aspects of continued airworthiness programs.
FAA Aerospace Forecast—Fiscal Years 2007–2020 predicts significant growth in the number of passengers and the amount of flight activity over this time period. In order to carry out its safety mission under anticipated levels of growth, FAA needs to ensure that it has an appropriate number of skilled inspectors. Accordingly, AFS engaged the Volpe Center, in partnership with Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), to develop the AFS Staffing Tool and Reporting System (ASTARS) project. ASTARS enables FAA to more accurately predict the inspector-staff resources needed to sustain oversight performance at an acceptable level and to distribute available staff resources equitably and effectively.
The Volpe Center-PWC team completed the first phase of the ASTARS project in June 2008, developing a concept of operations for the staffing model and documenting its functional and operational requirements. The second phase of the effort, currently in process, will identify relevant workforce supply and demand factors that ASTARS needs to consider. It will also analyze and define the computational algorithms needed to enable ASTARS to project staffing requirements under a number of different scenarios on the basis of these factors.
In FY 2009, the Volpe Center will develop a software tool that automates the model and provides for its standardized use by AFS management. The AFS staffing model is a key part of FAA's ongoing initiative to incorporate system-safety principles into its oversight processes. The successful development and implementation of the staffing model, slated for October 2009, will address congressional concerns resulting from a 2006 report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that pointed out areas for improvement in FAA's existing staffing-model/staffing-resource analysis process. When implemented, ASTARS will enable FAA to more effectively monitor factors that influence the demand for work and to determine appropriate, empirically valid staffing levels under changing environmental conditions. (Sponsored by DOT/FAA)
Outsourcing Maintenance by Air Carriers: Oversight Tool
FAA's Office of Aviation Safety (AVS) certifies all U.S. civil aviation operational and maintenance enterprises. It is also responsible for the certification, production approval, and continued airworthiness of aircraft as well as the certification of pilots, mechanics, and others in safety-related positions. Over the past several years, FAA has seen an increased level of maintenance outsourcing by air carriers. The Outsource Oversight Prioritization Tool (OPT) supports FAA's surveillance of outsourced maintenance by air carriers. OPT is part of the Enhanced Repair Station and Air Carrier Outsourcing Oversight System; it incorporates a Safety Management System (SMS)-based approach that identifies specific procedures to enhance oversight of air-carrier-safety outsourcing.
In FY 2008, the Volpe Center reengineered the OPT to provide web-based outsource surveillance planning for air carriers certified under Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Parts 121 and 135 (commercial air carriers). The reengineered OPT provides an effective means of identifying areas of concern in relation to an air carrier's outsourced maintenance providers, assisting safety inspectors, supervisors, and managers in targeting resources to the providers who have been assigned the highest-priority responsibilities. The tool focuses inspectors' attention on key factors in the assessment of providers, including the adequacy of operator staffing, subcontracting relationships, the type and complexity of work performed, and previous surveillance findings. (Sponsored by DOT/FAA)
Motor-Carrier Emergency Preparedness and Continuity of Operations
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has a congressional mandate to improve the overall safety of the Nation's roadways. A nationwide Mission Continuity Program requires FMCSA to have a robust disaster-recovery program in place. In support of this initiative, the Volpe Center conducted a technical and business-process assessment of Disaster Recovery and Continuity of Operations (COOP) procedures at FMCSA Service Centers and Division Offices. The Volpe Center defined the implementation requirements for an Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) COOP library for FMCSA field offices and Headquarters, and disseminated critical COOP and Disaster Recovery (DR) information to the field.
During 2008, two-day workshops held in Denver, Chicago, and Baltimore, brought together subject-matter experts from FMCSA Headquarters and field offices to help the Volpe Center better understand current COOP/DR activities and to gather additional expertise from invited participants. Participating FMCSA staff members outlined the needs of a remotely accessible COOP library through a series of facilitated sessions. They were, in turn, provided with new and updated information regarding information security, Federal requirements, and standards. The outcome of the workshops was a list of business requirements, documentation, and critical processes to be addressed by the new COOP library. (Sponsored by DOT/FMCSA)
Motor-Carrier Roadside Inspection System Technical Assistance
The FMCSA Technical Support project is assisting FMCSA safety specialists and state partners through FMCSA's information systems. FMCSA and state safety specialists use investigative systems in their offices and in the field, to perform safety audits and compliance reviews and to prepare enforcement cases on interstate and intrastate motor carriers. Roadside-inspection systems are used by both Federal and state inspectors to collect vehicle- and driver-inspection data and to provide electronic access to FMCSA's data systems.
With regard to software products used for enforcement-related activities, this work supports FMCSA by providing technical support and accounts-administration services to Headquarters, field offices, and state partners.
In FY 2008, it was estimated that the FMCSA Technical Support project would respond to 37,000 requests for technical assistance from FMCSA application users, including users of 24-7 on-call support. Call logs cover 30 technical areas. Technical Support Team members also participate in FMCSA information technology (IT) workshops and numerous state and Federal training sessions. FMCSA Technical Support users include (but are not limited to) FMCSA safety investigators, border inspectors, state commercial enforcement personnel, and state DOT partners.
Both Federal and state inspectors collect roadside inspection data and provide electronic access to FMCSA's data systems with the use of FMCSA's investigative and roadside inspection systems. The Volpe Center provides technical as well as account-management support to all of these users. The Center's accomplishments in 2008 included expanded support of (1) the FMCSA COMPASS portal, (2) licensing and insurance operations, and (3) Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) initiatives, such as Commercial Vehicle Information Systems and Networks (CVISN) and Uniform Carrier Registration (UCR). The Volpe Center also supported FMCSA workshops, improved customer service, initiated metrics to resolve and prevent stale calls, and provided technical training and on-site support to FMCSA Headquarters. (Sponsored by DOT/FMCSA)
Commercial Space Transportation
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) is entrusted with protecting U.S. public, property, national security, and foreign policy interests during a commercial space launch or reentry activities as well as with facilitating and promoting U.S. commercial space transportation. AST fulfills this role by licensing commercial space activities, monitoring launches, and determining the overall economic impact of U.S. commercial space transportation activities. Additionally, AST issues safety regulations for private spaceflight launches and reentries, and for crews and passengers, on the basis of scientific studies and risk assessments.
AST requires launch-vehicle operators to verify the integrated performance of a vehicle's hardware and software in an operational environment. Among its chief goals is a commitment to protecting the safety of the uninvolved public. AST accomplishes this goal by promulgating measures that enable passengers to make informed decisions about their personal safety and establishing requirements for crew notification, medical qualifications, and training as well as for environmental control and life-support systems.
In support of AST, the Volpe Center provides technical expertise, including analyses of commercial space issues regarding vehicle technology, human factors, operating conditions, environmental factors, and analyses of risks to crews, passengers, and the uninvolved public. During the past year, the Volpe Center team completed the following safety-related studies:
- Potential for Protection of Aircraft from the Hazards of Reentering Space Objects: Examines the hazard posed to aircraft from space-hardware debris that survives reentry into the atmosphere.
- Cecil Field Spaceport Risk Analysis: Provides flight-safety analyses of launch/reentry risk for the proposed spaceport at Cecil Field Airport in Jacksonville, Florida, in association with suborbital launches of three reusable launch-vehicle concepts.
- Analysis of Tethered Flight Systems: Addresses various types of tethered systems, methodologies used to evaluate tethered-rocket flight-safety systems, key assumptions, methodology limitations, and criteria and assumptions for performing a failure analysis. Vehicle tethering allows a vehicle to lift itself off the ground under its own power while physically restraining it from moving too far or building up too much speed.
- Space Weather Biological and System Effects for Suborbital Flights: Assesses the impacts of space weather (radiation) on launch vehicles. The study presents a broad overview of the space environment; quantifies the system effects and biological hazards of radiation exposure; describes potential hazards that a suborbital vehicle, passengers, and crew can expect to encounter; and addresses the potential need for space-weather safety regulations.
- Expected Casualty Analysis for the SpaceX Falcon-1 from the Reagan Launch Site (Kwajalein Atoll): Assesses the risks to people from potential launch debris on the ground, in aircraft, and on ships. (Sponsored by DOT/FAA)