Airport Research Needs: Cooperative Solutions -- Special Report 272 (2003)

The key findings of this report are summarized in this chapter. The committee believes that the findings

• Justify the creation of a national research program focused on the needs of airport operators;

• Reveal how such a program can play a role in helping airport operators meet the many demands of federal agencies, state governments, local communities, and airport users; and

• Provide guidance on governing, funding, and administering an airport research program.

Some 5,000 airports scattered across the country are open to public use in the United States, including more than 500 that offer airline service. They vary in size from more than 50 square miles to a few dozen acres and accommodate aircraft ranging from 500-seat jet airliners to single-engine props. They form a key component of the country’s heavily used aviation system. Unlike the centralized air traffic control enterprise, which is run almost entirely by the federal government, the nation’s airports are a collection of independent entities owned and operated by thousands of mostly public agencies.

The diversity and decentralization of the airport system are strengths. Competition among airports for the business of airlines and other aircraft users prompts efficiencies and innovations in products, processes, and services. At the same time, individual airports are elements of regional and national transportation networks; they are interconnected and dependent on one another. For aviation users—whether airline passengers, shippers, or general aviation (GA) operators—the vast airport network with its many origin and destination points is what makes the nation’s aviation system so useful.

Recognizing the importance of building and maintaining a nationally integrated aviation system, the federal government has long played an important role in providing assistance to thousands of airports run by state and local governments. During the past three decades, it has granted more than $30 billion to operators for improvements in runways and taxiways, terminal facilities, noise mitigation, safety equipment, security, and air navigation and guidance systems. Most of the revenues to fund these investments stem from federal taxes and other levies on aviation users maintained in the Airport and Airway Trust Fund.

To protect the large federal investment in the nation’s airport infrastructure and ensure its safe and efficient use, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has established various standards governing major aspects of the design, construction, maintenance, and operations of airport facilities. In supporting the development and implementation of these standards, FAA sponsors research on topics ranging from pavement durability to noise modeling and mitigation.

Yet, from the standpoint of airport operators, different research needs are apparent. For example, an increase in an airport’s operations must be carried out without significantly increasing noise, air pollution, or other environmental impacts. Security must be strengthened without unduly burdening and possibly driving away users. Federal restrictions on how airports can generate revenues from landing fees and other user charges—restrictions that accompany most federal grants—must be balanced against demands by state and municipal owners that airports seek out new revenue sources to become self-supporting. In the end, it is up to the airport operators themselves to find ways to meet these many demands.

Operators face a growing challenge in responding to these demands. New agencies with jurisdiction over airports, such as the Transportation Security Administration, are imposing new requirements. Others, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its state counterparts, have gradually expanded their authority into the realm of airport planning, construction, and operations. Thus, what may appear to be straightforward requirements from the perspective of a single agency can result in many uncertainties and problems for airport operators. At the moment, operators do not have a research capability to address these uncertainties and solve the resulting problems.

The airport research enterprise does not currently provide a means for operators to cooperate among themselves and with other interested parties to

find solutions to shared problems or to seek new ideas to improve airport operations. The federal government has much at stake in ensuring that such research is undertaken and that it is of the highest quality. Airports with fewer problems are more likely to use their resources efficiently and to require less federal assistance. They are more likely to be able to respond effectively to the requirements of federal agencies—whether to strengthen security, protect the environment, or increase capacity. And they are more likely to be able to meet the demands of airport users, which will ultimately benefit travelers and shippers depending on safe, secure, and efficient air service.

Cooperative research activities confer many other benefits that can be difficult to gauge. The National Highway Cooperative Research Program (NCHRP) and the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) have demonstrated that regular collaboration of practitioners, public officials, researchers, and technical experts can provide opportunities for the exchange of information and ideas. Moreover, practitioners who are actively involved in research gain skills and expertise that strengthen the industry’s professional capacity and help attract talented individuals to the field. Of course, research performed at universities is essential for training students and interesting them in the airport management and engineering professions.

The mission of a national airport cooperative research program (ACRP) must be clear and well articulated so that the program complements, and does not duplicate or detract from, existing research activities. An ACRP, unlike any current program, will provide an opportunity to address problems that

• Many operators share but that tend to be too costly or complex for a single operator or a small group of operators to research;

• Receive limited attention because of a lack of funding or incompatibility with the mission and institutional requirements of federal agencies and others that traditionally perform airport-related research; and

• Can be researched with a reasonable expenditure of time and effort to yield results that can be readily implemented by airport operators and users.

The following are examples of airport needs in several common problem areas. They illustrate the kinds of research questions that could be addressed through a national ACRP.

• Operations and safety

  • What is a safe and efficient speed for escalators and moving sidewalks in airport environments that are often crowded with hurrying passengers carrying luggage?

  • How are proposed changes in air traffic control and area navigation rules, such as terminal instrument procedures, likely to affect the configuration, placement, and capacity of airport taxiways and runways? What effects are these changes likely to have on overall airport capacity?

• Maintenance

  • What methods are most suitable for choosing among alternative maintenance products and practices for use under different airport conditions?

  • What tools do operators have—and how effective are they—for monitoring the condition of assets, prioritizing maintenance activity, and managing maintenance personnel and contractors?

• Design of infrastructure and equipment

  • How do airports currently use FAA’s advisory circulars? Which circulars are most urgently in need of updating to give airports better design guidance?

  • To what extent have changes in the dimensions, controllability, and visibility of modern aircraft been accounted for in FAA design standards for taxiway geometrics, signage visibility, and wingtip clearances, and what modifications of these standards are warranted?

• Finance and administration

  • What experience do airport operators have in this country and abroad in using design–build–finance techniques for expediting construction of new facilities? What have been the positive and negative results of these efforts? What can be learned from experiences in public works and other modes of transportation?

  • What are the emerging challenges that airports face, in light of heightened security concerns, in recruiting and retaining qualified personnel and reducing workplace stress? What can be learned from the practices of other industries facing similar challenges?

• Planning

  • What changes in aircraft types, dimensions, and uses can be expected in the medium and near terms, and how can these changes be accommodated in capital planning for airport facilities?

• What changes in demand-forecasting methodologies are needed to better assess future facility requirements given the uncertainties now affecting the entire commercial aviation sector?

• Environment

  • What alternative aircraft deicing methods and materials are available? How well do they balance the needs for safety assurance, environmental protection, affordability, and compatibility with operational requirements?

  • What are the data and modeling requirements to analyze emissions of air toxics associated with health risks at airports in a manner that is scientifically credible and useful in decision making?

  • What changes in the current regulatory framework for airports would be required to streamline the planning and environmental documentation process for critically needed airport improvements?

• Security

  • What cost-effective changes in terminal designs and features (e.g., “way-finding” signs) are available to facilitate security processing, avoid crowding, and expedite the movement of passenger traffic through terminals?

  • How can passenger and baggage flows be modeled accurately to assist in the longer-term infrastructure planning for the design and location of explosive detection systems and for deployment of security personnel?

Although this list is not comprehensive, it reveals a diversity of research needs. Specific research interests will undoubtedly vary by airport size, location, use patterns, and other factors. Operators of GA airports, for instance, may be more interested in research on the kinds of asphalt pavements found on short-field runways than on the more rigid concrete structures used for paving runways that can handle large commercial jets. Likewise, northern airports will have a greater interest in research on snow- and ice-control methods and materials, while commercial-service airports will be the most interested in research to improve the efficiency of passenger and cargo flows.

The wide scope of research needs suggests that a cooperative research program must be responsive, rigorous, objective, and capable of involving practitioners and researchers with expertise from many disciplines. Insights gained from reviewing the experiences of NCHRP and TCRP indicate that how a program is governed, financed, and managed will have a large bearing on these capabilities.

A research program’s overall design and organizational characteristics have a fundamental influence on the research needs addressed, how the research is carried out, the quality of the results, and the extent to which the results are applied. The committee’s review of NCHRP and TCRP suggests that the following characteristics will be especially important in guiding the establishment of an airport research program.

Airport operators must integrate the demands of multiple federal agencies, state and local governments, and airport users. The challenges and problems they face result in research needs and priorities that differ from those making the demands. Operators, therefore, must have a primary role in setting the research agenda, defining the expected products of research, and ensuring the timeliness and applicability of the research results. In doing so, they must cooperate closely with the federal agencies and users of airports, all of whom have an interest in ensuring that the operators succeed.

The experiences of NCHRP and TCRP suggest that an ACRP will require a strong and committed governing board. The board should consist of top executives from a cross section of the nation’s airports as well as representatives from federal agencies, industry organizations, and airport users. The governing board must define the research priorities and ensure overall quality and relevance of the research. It must articulate expected research products and assist with dissemination of research results. Finally, it must coordinate with other research programs that have complementary functions.

The federal government, the private sector, and airport operators collectively spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on airport-related research and technology development. The committee did not examine whether these funds are allocated appropriately or have been successful in achieving their objectives. However, the study indicates that airports do not currently have a way to fund urgent, short-term research to meet their needs. While the immediate and near-term problems of airport operators are not intrinsically more important than those being addressed by established research programs, they differ in nature and urgency, and thus they deserve explicit attention.

The experiences of NCHRP and TCRP suggest the importance of having finances dedicated to cooperative research. Dedicated funding can provide a base that is sufficiently large to address a range of research needs and reliable enough to sustain interest in the program. A program that is limited to a narrow set of research problems because of limited finances is likely to become marginalized. Airport operators in particular must view the program as a dependable source of ideas and information. They must have a sense of ownership of the program—a commitment to ensuring that the program addresses airport needs and is run efficiently. Because the ultimate beneficiaries of the research will be airport users, financing of the program through aviation user fees can provide these critical stakeholder connections.

NCHRP and TCRP are managed by TRB. Their experience demonstrates that the organization managing the research program must provide more than accounting and administrative services. It must refine the research needs, establish objective means of selecting competent researchers, ensure that research results are technically sound, and disseminate the results widely within the appropriate communities. It must have experience in managing a research program covering a number of disciplines.

Both NCHRP and TCRP use competitively selected contractors to perform the work. Contract-based research offers the greatest flexibility in utilizing the varied expertise and facilities needed for a diverse research portfolio. It also requires competent managers to develop requests for proposals, screen competing researchers with regard to their qualifications, and administer the contracts. The managers must be able to draw on both technical experts and practitioners to define projects, participate in merit review to select capable researchers to perform the work, and peer-review the quality and applicability of the results. Above all, the management organization must be viewed as impartial, independent, and committed to undertaking quality research and disseminating the results.

Congress requested this study of the desirability of a national cooperative research program for airports. In so doing, it asked for an assessment of the applicability of the financing and administrative approaches used by NCHRP and TCRP. The committee believes that these programs offer an organizational

model well suited to meeting the research needs of airport operators and proposed means of governing, financing, and managing an ACRP in Chapter 4. A proposal for a trial program is outlined in Box 5-1. It embodies the key characteristics discussed above:

• The program would be governed and guided by the top managers from a cross section of the nation’s airports in collaboration with representatives of federal agencies, airport users, and others.

• It would be financed with revenues derived from aviation users. Such financing would bring about a research agenda that is focused on producing solutions with direct application to airport problems and would thus prompt a strong commitment to the program on the part of the airport and aviation communities.

• Its management would be structured to ensure that the research products meet the highest applicable standards and are accessible to users.

This model is derived from the NCHRP and TCRP structures. It provides a first step toward creating an ACRP. The experience of TCRP—established only a decade ago—provides insights into subsequent steps. Convinced of the merits of a cooperative research program, transit agencies took it upon themselves to broaden awareness and build consensus for a cooperative research program. They acted through industry associations to clarify the organizational structure of the desired program, outline a legislative proposal, and mobilize support for it. Top transit managers have remained active in the program since its inception. The nation’s airport operators will need to commit themselves to a similar effort.