Major technological and security changes in the aviation industry over the past 20 years have forced airport leaders and aviation stakeholders to think of new research ideas that will improve the planning and development of policies and new models that foster growth of air service, incorporate new airport and customer technology, revise airport business models, and better interact with neighboring communities.
ACRP (Airport Cooperative Research Program) Web-Only Document 39: Policy and Planning Issues Roadmap Report is one of several Research Roadmap Reports that the ACRP commissioned to generate the research ideas that will help airports solve common problems, learn about new technologies, and assess innovations in services and operations.
Planning and policy together represent one of 10 identified categories of research that directly involves and benefits the airport industry. Policy and planning issues are especially sensitive to developments in the aviation industry. For example, airport boards and executives may adopt new commercial strategies to raise additional airport revenues (an internal decision), while the FAA may change the criteria or funding levels for airport programs (an external decision).
These Research Roadmaps augment the continuous ACRP solicitation process to airport industry practitioners for research ideas and problem statements.
41 pages
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49911-9
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25605
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Policy and Planning Issues Roadmap Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Global business and tourism depend heavily on the efficient operation of airports and movement of passengers, baggage, and cargo across many areas. With increasing demand and connectivity requirements for airports comes the need for more sophisticated simulation and modeling tools to validate design assumptions.
Furthermore, airport design and planning decisions have significant impacts on policy and major capital improvement decisions, which can be supported by simulation and modeling tools at many levels.
ACRP Synthesis 98: Simulation Options for Airport Planning is the result of the collection and analysis of information on current industry practices and on applications of simulation tools for airport planning and design. Credible simulation projects can help airport administrators, designers, engineers, and planners estimate the impact of planned changes on passenger traffic, aircraft traffic, roadway traffic, baggage movements, and other subsystems such as bus and train links and aircraft ground support operations.
The toolsets and processes used to analyze and simulate airport operations have changed significantly since the 1980s, when analysis techniques were limited to general purpose queuing and network analysis concepts or purpose-built simulation tools. These tools have become much more sophisticated and accurate in emulating real-world aircraft, passenger, and vehicle dynamics.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48066-3
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49745-0
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25573
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Simulation Options for Airport Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Airports—especially in the past two decades—have generally sought to promote and increase collaboration among the members of the airport community, particularly between an airport and its airlines. One metric of this trend has been the increase in the number of U.S. airports with full-time emergency managers, from fewer than 10 in 2007 to more than 120 today. Collaboration and increased professionalism in airport emergency management have gone hand in hand.
No matter whether the incident is aircraft-related or an incident in the terminal—such as an active shooter, a bomb threat, or other hazard—the goals of airports, airlines, and others in the airport community are to achieve safety, security, compassion, customer service, regulatory compliance, and reputation. Achieving these goals can contribute to resiliency and to the protection of critical infrastructure and key resources.
Although air travel is one of the safest modes of travel, and airports are among the safest public spaces in the United States, air-travel incidents do occur. ACRP Synthesis 99: Emergency Working Groups at Airports documents these working groups and how they assist victims and their families and friends in the weeks following an incident.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48067-1
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49743-4
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25572
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Emergency Working Groups at Airports. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Airports continually balance demands to improve infrastructure within the realities of available budgets. Green revolving funds (GRFs) offer an alternative approach for investing in projects that generate operational savings. These funds work by tracking verified cost reductions from implemented actions, and then transferring those savings to a reserve that provides capital for future qualified projects such as energy system upgrades.
A number of universities have managed GRFs for over a decade. Municipalities are starting to adopt them as well. ACRP Research Report 203: Revolving Funds for Sustainability Projects at Airports includes several non-airport-related case examples that have managed GRFs and two airport-related case examples. Airports require a modified GRF approach because of financial structures, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulatory requirements, airline agreements, and the wide range of tenant roles.
This ACRP report provides guidance to determine whether this innovative funding approach is suitable for a particular airport and instructions on how to deploy it. Airports that have the ability and determination to launch a GRF will gain a robust method for advancing their sustainability goals.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48063-9
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49727-2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25567
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Revolving Funds for Sustainability Projects at Airports. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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"Pavement condition data" are essential inputs to the process of managing airport pavements and ensuring safe operations. The technology available today to collect pavement condition data is considerably different from that available even 20 years ago, and new technologies are being developed and introduced into practice at a rapid pace.
ACRP Research Report 203: Guidelines for Collecting, Applying, and Maintaining Pavement Condition Data at Airports provides guidance on the collection, use, maintenance, and application of pavement condition data at airports. Such data include conditions that are visually observed as well as those that are obtained by mechanical measurement or other means. Visually observed distresses on a pavement surface (such as cracking, rutting, patching, and spalling) are widely used and accepted as indicators of pavement performance.
A key part of the background study leading to this report was the development of case studies of seven airports or airport agencies on their experiences with pavement data collection, use, and management. They include: Houston Airport System (Houston, Texas), Salt Lake City Department of Airports (Salt Lake City, Utah), Dublin International (Dublin, Ireland), Columbus Regional Port Authority (Columbus, Ohio), Gerald R. Ford International Airport Authority (Grand Rapids, Michigan), North Dakota (statewide), and Missouri (statewide).
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120 pages
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49725-6
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25566
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Guidelines for Collecting, Applying, and Maintaining Pavement Condition Data at Airports. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Although general aviation airports have historically been funded by federal, state, and local entities, the private sector is increasingly playing a larger role. This involvement has ranged on a continuum from service and management contracts to singular projects at airports that involve leasing mechanisms to long-term leases and the whole-scale private development of general aviation airports.
In an era of declining resources and increasingly scrutinized public expenditures, private-sector involvement is and will likely need to continue to play a larger role to fill an ongoing and increasing gap between the existing infrastructure and the infrastructure that is needed.
Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 94: Attracting Investment at General Aviation Airports Through Public–Private Partnerships explore public–private partnerships (PPPs) at general aviation airports in the United States over the past five years.
For the purpose of the synthesis, these PPPs are defined by the World Bank as long-term contracts between a private party and a government entity for providing a public asset or service, in which the private party bears significant risk and management responsibility, and remuneration is linked to performance
74 pages
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49707-8
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25560
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Attracting Investment at General Aviation Airports Through Public–Private Partnerships. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Some concrete pavements commonly used at airports are susceptible to the destructive effects of alkali-silica reaction (ASR). The presence of ASR on concrete pavements can have a devastating effect on pavement performance, not only in terms of reduced functionality, but also in terms of shortened service lives.
The focus of ACRP Synthesis 96: Practices to Mitigate Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) Affected Pavements at Airports is on current practices for mitigating ASR in affected pavements at airports. Given the substantial initial investment required for pavement, airports are interested in using mitigations to slow the effects of ASR and prolong the life of airfield concrete pavements.
This synthesis identifies the current state of the practice regarding the mitigation measures used on existing ASR-affected airport pavements that service aircraft and summarizes the experiences and practices of airports in dealing with the distress (including conventional treatments, but also any new or emerging technologies).
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48055-8
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49682-9
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25553
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Practices to Mitigate Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR) Affected Pavements at Airports. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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One of the most challenging environmental issues facing the aviation industry today is the impact of jet fuel emissions on the global climate. The use of sustainable alternative jet fuels (SAJF) to reduce aircraft emissions will become significantly more important in coming years. Capturing the air quality benefits in a way that is useful to airports requires understanding how SAJF reduce pollutant emissions, quantifying the reduction, and demonstrating the impact through an easy-to-use tool that airports can apply to their emissions inventories.
ACRP Web-Only Document 41: Alternative Jet Fuels Emissions: Quantification Methods Creation and Validation Report represents the second phase of this ACRP work. The first phase provided an understanding of how SAJF impacts aircraft emissions. This phase analyzes the data compiled in the report to quantify SAJF emission impacts.
Results of this analysis were subsequently used to develop a simplified tool that will allow airports to easily estimate emission reductions from use of SAJF at their airport. The Alternative Jet Fuel Assessment Tool and the Sustainable Alternative Jet Fuels and Emissions Reduction Fact Sheet are the two key products from ACRP 02-80.
121 pages
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49668-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25548
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. ACRP Web-Only Document 41: Alternative Jet Fuels Emissions: Quantification Methods Creation and Validation Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Resources to help promote interest in aviation among younger populations ranging from 10 years old to 25 years old are detailed in TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 202.
The report is designed to help educators and aviation enthusiasts understand the need for encouraging interest in aviation. It offers guidance on developing a program of activities to fit particular needs and provides activities for developing a program that can be scaled and tailored for various age groups and resource availability.
The report is designed to help develop intentional pathways for promoting interest in aviation. These pathways are seen as the process for engaging students at an early age to pursue aviation at some level and then have them, in turn, continue the cycle by promoting aviation to others.
The report addresses the challenges to establishing and maintaining these pathways—such as resource limitations, lack of programming or curriculum, competing interests for kids, and administrative or organizational issues—and identifies opportunities to overcome them.
The report also provides support for developing and executing single events and activities when they are the most practical means for exposing young people to the aviation industry. Finally, the report includes three summary listings of the landing pages. The landing pages are a collection of activities that can engage young people in aviation and be adapted to any particular group or organization. They are sorted by activity type, target age group, and cost per person. A searchable list, by keyword, of these landing pages can be found in the Presorted Tables PDF.
There is also an individual activity landing pages PDF, which is an alphabetical listing of organizations and the types of activities they offer. The PDF User Guide explains how to use and search the PDFs. A microsite with the Presorted Tables PDF, the Individual Activity Landing Pages PDF, and the PDF User Guide may be found at http://www.trb.org/acrp/acrpreport202.aspx.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48053-1
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49582-2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25528
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Developing Innovative Strategies for Aviation Education and Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 201 provides guidance and tools for airports to aid in effective communication with passengers and persons with disabilities, including those with cultural and language differences.
The report includes a primer that discusses issues, techniques, and the unique requirements and challenges of communicating with people with disabilities and others who have access or functional needs.
The report explores uses of technology and other methods that incorporate ADA considerations and communication challenges with airport stakeholders, and training programs for airport personnel, including templates for development of curricula.
There are case study examples of methods of emergency communication at airports and in other industries, and for universal messaging for emergency communications.
The project that produced the report also produced templates in support of airport emergency plans specifically addressing individuals with limited English proficiency, step-by-step tools that include a needs assessment tool that airports can use to determine what steps must to be taken to comply with ADA requirements concerning communications, and templates/worksheets/checklists for planning tabletop exercises that focus on communicating with people with disabilities and access or functional needs during emergency events. These resources are described and linked to below.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48049-3
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49517-2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25507
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Airport Emergency Communications for People with Disabilities and Others with Access and Functional Needs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 199: Climate Resilience and Benefit–Cost Analysis: A Handbook for Airports provides information on how to apply benefit–cost analysis tools and techniques to improve decision making affecting resilience of airport infrastructure projects in response to potential long-term impacts of climate change and extreme weather events.
The handbook is designed to improve the process by which infrastructure investment strategies are evaluated, with an emphasis on ensuring climate-related resiliency.
Procedures for presenting assumptions and results transparently and for implementing the process are also included so that industry users and decision makers can understand and communicate the outcome of the analytical process.
Based on data availability, the analytical methods included in the handbook focus on two specific areas of climate change likely to affect airports (although these methods can, in principle, be used more widely): (1) the potential for extreme flooding events resulting from storm surge and sea level rise near coastal airports, and (2) the potential for rising temperatures that require weight restrictions on aircraft takeoffs (or possibly full flight delays) at airports with shorter runways in warm climates or at high elevations.
The results available from application of the suggested methodologies do not necessarily make the decision of whether to invest in a mitigation project to combat climate change any easier but, rather, provide a full range of potential outcomes and possibilities for airport planners and managers to consider. Using this methodology, airport decision makers can then determine how much risk from uncertain climate change and extreme weather events they are willing or able to accommodate. Implementation of the methods presented in the handbook can be used to obtain essential quantifiable estimates of those risks, which is of particular value to airport financial professionals.
The handbook is accompanied by a set of Microsoft Excel models to support the decision-making process (one for extreme water rise causing potential flooding events, and the other for high temperatures that may affect weight restrictions on aircraft takeoffs), a video tutorial, a report summary document, and an executive briefing to help decision makers understand the process.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48045-0
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49472-9
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25497
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Climate Resilience and Benefit–Cost Analysis: A Handbook for Airports. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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ACRP Research Report 198: Wetland Mitigation, Volume 2, A Guidebook for Airports explores how to mitigate potential impacts to wetlands from airport construction, expansion, and safety improvements.
The report addresses a broad range of issues, including:
• Concerns over the creation of potential wildlife hazards;
• Existing requirements, which may or may not be conflicting;
• Impact to existing and future airport development;
• Airport considerations of cost and logistics in developing mitigation and related life-cycle obligations; and
• Environmental benefits.
Airport improvements often result in the unavoidable loss of wetlands, as many airports are located in or adjacent to wetlands. In addition, the size and scale of airports and supporting infrastructure is extensive, which has made it difficult to completely avoid impacting wetlands.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48034-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49446-X
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25486
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Wetland Mitigation, Volume 2, A Guidebook for Airports. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 95: Airport Incident Reporting Practices focuses on current practices for defining, collecting, aggregating, protecting, and reporting airport organizational incident information.
The report is designed to assist those airport operators seeking to understand the nature of airport incident reporting and its importance for organizational learning and effectiveness, risk management, operational safety, and worker safety.
An incident reporting system can be utilized to flag or provide potential early warning of drifts in actions toward a stated goal or an adverse event or loss.
When discussing incident reporting, reference is made to safety, hazards, indicators, performance, enterprise risk management, culture, climate, and other related terms. However, there does not exist universal agreement as to what constitutes an incident. For this reason, the report takes a broad approach to incident reporting in organizations. It views incident reporting as a means to improve airport organizations through the analysis of data. With data, better-informed and higher quality decision-making can be exercised.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48032-9
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49336-6
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25465
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Airport Incident Reporting Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 200: Using GIS for Collaborative Land Use Compatibility Planning Near Airports offers guidance for using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a collaboration tool to encourage compatible land use around airports.
The report is designed to help airport and community planners seeking to work together to protect existing and future airport development as well as maintain safety and improve quality of life for those living and working near airports.
The report includes a description of the perspectives, goals, responsibilities, and concerns of the federal government, airports, and local communities to ensure that each has a good understanding of the others' missions and priorities. The report also examines potential benefits that GIS might have on fostering collaboration and offers guidance on initiating and maintaining collaboration, and for developing, sharing, and using data.
A key feature of the guidebook is examples of how GIS was used collaboratively to address various land use compatibility issues, including aircraft noise, obstructions, wildlife hazards, and solar glare. A set of appendices supplements the guide by summarizing the role of government, providing a brief history of FAA aeronautical surveys, case studies, and example data sharing agreements.
Presentation templates for stakeholder outreach on noise and obstruction, as well as a sample outreach flier on the value of GIS in airport planning, were produced as part of this project.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48027-2
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49334-X
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25464
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Using GIS for Collaborative Land Use Compatibility Planning Near Airports. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 16: Guidebook for Managing Small Airports. Second Edition is designed to help airport practitioners, owners, operators, managers, and policymakers of small airports, who may have varying degrees of experience and backgrounds, to fulfill their responsibilities in such areas as financial management, oversight of contracts and leases, safety and security, noise impacts, community relations, compliance with federal and state obligations, facility maintenance, and capital improvements.
The first edition has been edited and reformatted for currency, relevance, and usability and updated with additional information and new subject areas (e.g., unmanned aircraft systems, geographic information systems, digital Notices to Airmen, social media, and federal and state obligations).
Since the publication of ACRP Report 16: Guidebook for Managing Small Airports (2009), a significant amount of research that could be of direct benefit to small airports has been completed, and the Federal Aviation Administration, state agencies, and trade and industry groups have developed and initiated new policies and guidance. In addition, small airports are facing new industry challenges not addressed in the first edition (e.g., unmanned aerial systems). Therefore, an update was needed.
ACRP WebResource 6: Resources for Managing Small Airports is a companion to ACRP Research Report 16: Guidebook for Managing Small Airports, 2nd edition. The web resource serves as an electronic library delivering additional resources and tools to allow small airport managers to dig deeper into topics of interest frequently encountered in their airport manager roles. It also contains implementation resources and tools associated with recommendations in the guidebook.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48025-6
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-28003-6
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/14275
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Guidebook for Managing Small Airports - Second Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 197: Guidebook for Developing a Comprehensive Renewable Resources Strategy highlights renewable energy sources, includes steps for developing a renewable energy strategy, and identifies metrics for measuring success. The report also highlights real-world examples of successful renewable resource projects at airports.
Renewable resources to reduce emissions from airports and climate impacts have been discussed for several years. Technological advancements have allowed organizations, specifically airports, to begin integrating renewable resources into their overall energy plans. In an effort to address climate impacts and achieve neutral carbon growth by 2020, a coalition of aviation stakeholders has adopted emission reduction targets.
Airports are also seeking to become energy independent, and using renewable resources as a strategy to get there. Further, as the costs for conventional energy sources increases, renewable resources become more financially attractive. Those airports who have implemented renewable resources have been able to do so at minimal cost.
While a business case can be made for the integration of any one particular renewable resource, an airport can be more strategic by adopting an overall renewable resource strategy. The renewable resources strategy can then become an input to other airport planning documents (e.g., airport master plan, strategic plan). The success of developing the plan as well as implementation require all internal and external stakeholders are involved in the process.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48016-7
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49214-9
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25433
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Guidebook for Developing a Comprehensive Renewable Resources Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Results Digest 28: Thought Leader Forum Summary—Emerging Issues for ACRP summarizes a January 30, 2019, forum to identify the most important issues facing the airport industry within the next 5 to 10 years.
The goal of this exercise was to engage the ACRP's Airport Operations Committee (AOC) directly with other thought leaders in the industry to identify and define high-level emerging critical issues that impact, or will soon impact, the airport industry.
The digest describes the results of a pre-Forum survey designed to help shape the Forum discussion, summarizes the results of the forum itself, and explores potential next steps.
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48017-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49256-4
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25441
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Thought Leader Forum Summary—Emerging Issues for ACRP. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report: 194: Using Disaggregated Socioeconomic Data in Air Passenger Demand Studies explores the potential benefits of using disaggregated socioeconomic data, such as regional household income distributions and air passenger and travel survey data, for air passenger demand studies.
Aviation demand is strongly correlated to socioeconomic activity, and analysts typically use aggregate socioeconomic data, such as gross regional product or average regional household income, to better understand current and potential future aviation demand.
Since the United States is experiencing significant and ongoing demographic trends there is a question as to whether traditional methods and data sources will adequately capture these trends or would more detailed, disaggregated socioeconomic data, or even nontraditional data provide more accurate results.
This report summarizes long-term socioeconomic trends, attempts to understand their potential impact, and provides guidance for incorporating disaggregated socioeconomic data into air passenger demand studies.
The following appendices to ACRP Research Report 194 are available online:
Appendix A: Detailed Survey of Past Analyses of Air Passenger Demand
Appendix B: Airport Industry Use of Socioeconomic Data for Air Passenger Demand Studies
Appendix C: Additional Material on Sources of Disaggregated Socioeconomic Data
Appendix D: Detailed Case Study Analysis Results
Appendix E: Background on Other Analytic Approaches
134 pages
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48015-9
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-49113-4
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/25411
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Using Disaggregated Socioeconomic Data in Air Passenger Demand Studies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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