COMMITTED TO CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVING SURFACE SAFETY. National Runway Safety Plan 2018-2020 NRSP RUNWAY SAFETY COUNCIL #47 www.faa.gov Executive-Level Statement Before rolling for takeoff, all pilots TABLE make sure their compass aligns with OF CONTENTS Summary the known direction of the runway. 4 This critical step reduces risk by Safety Assurance helping ensure flight instruments 6 are calibrated properly. Safety Risk Management Like a compass, the National Runway Safety Plan 8 2018-2020 aligns our strategic priorities with established Safety Risk Management principles. The plan defines how the FAA, airports, and industry Safety Policy partners collaborate and use data-driven, risk-based 10 decision-making to enhance the safety of the National Airspace System. Safety Promotion This is especially important in an era of tightening 16 resources. We are doing more with less by refining data and using automation to improve efficiency. We prefer modifying present resources to introducing new 19 International Leadership technology as a way to enhance safety mitigations. Our efforts are local, national, and international in scope. We can pinpoint problems at an airport to a single intersection at a specific time of day, or use millions of data points to identify a systemic problem. Our Runway Safety Enhancement Initiatives apply strategic efforts to mitigate the identified risk. The Runway Safety Program’s responsibility continues to serve as the focal point for all surface safety initiatives. We are committed to continuously improving runway safety. James Fee Safety and Technical Training Runway Safety Group Manager Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Organization 4 2018-2020 National Runway Safety Plan Strategic Objectives 2018-2020 National Runway Safety Plan Strategic Objectives 5 Summary SAFETY ASSURANCE Identify Operating Hazards The National Runway Safety Plan 2018-2020 Council, that have been used in several cases Program Data builds on the achievements of the National to identify and mitigate safety risks. We identify Runway Safety Plan 2015-2017. The most and discuss three strategic steps. These steps Remain the global leader Voluntary Safety Reporting fundamental impact of the first plan has include data collection and analysis, plans and in assuring runway safety Investigations been the successful integration of the Safety policy, and finally communicating the change. enhancement initiatives are Safety Risk Monitoring Management System principles into the Runway effective in maintaining an Data Analysis Safety strategy. These principles are: Safety As with the previous plan, this plan is designed acceptable level of safety at U.S. Assurance, Safety Risk Management, Safety to expand our role as the global leader in runway Partnership for Safety airports with an air traffic control Policy, and Safety Promotion. safety while serving as a resource for anyone tower. Audits and Evaluations interested in aviation safety. For each principle, These principles favor iterative steps in support we describe the current state of applications of data-driven, risk-based decision-making. of the principle and how they fit into the overall That’s a strategy we will apply during the three strategy. Supplemental documents can be found SAFETY RISK years of this plan. on the RUNWAY SAFETY WEBSITE. MANAGEMENT Analyze, Assess, Mitigate, and Accept Risk An important example of how that strategy benefits the NAS has been the identification of Implement Runway Safety Develop Monitoring Plan wrong surface operations as a rising risk and The four components of the SMS Enhancement Initiatives that Safety Risk Management our subsequent focus on finding solutions to manage or reduce the risk of Documents mitigate the risk. One of these solutions, Airport combine to create a systemic airport operations. Surface Detection Equipment Model X (ASDE-X) Taxiway Arrival Prediction (ATAP) is in use today. approach to managing and We refer to this example throughout the plan to SAFETY ensuring safety. illustrate how the Runway Safety strategy works. POLICY This plan outlines the methods and collaborative SMS Orders organizations, such as the Runway Safety Establish and maintain policies Safety Guidance and procedures to ensure adequate resources are available FAA/ATO Safety Orders to accomplish the FAA’s near-term SMS Manual and strategic objectives. SAFETY PROMOTION Outreach and Education Relentlessly promote best Products practices, lessons learned, and Lessons Learned actionable information obtained Workshops from data analysis to our global Safety Communication runway safety stakeholders. 6 2018-2020 National Runway Safety Plan Strategic Objectives 2018-2020 National Runway Safety Plan Strategic Objectives 7 MILESTONES After conducting data Integrate the capability for analysis on wrong surface the automatic-classification 1. Safety Assurance events, the Runway Safety (Autoclass) of surface safety Group identified 9 airports events. The RSG will use across the country with technology to isolate low-risk DATA MONITORING AND ANALYSIS high risk of runway excursions non-conflict category D and collisions. During FY20, the events and high confidence RSG conducted Special Focus conflict category C events. RSAT meetings at the identified This will streamline resources airports to discuss mitigation by reducing the number of Objective: Remain the global leader in assuring Runway Safety strategies and to develop a events that are currently plan of action. Most of these manually entered and enhancement initiatives are effective in maintaining an acceptable meetings were conducted processed in runway safety level of safety at U.S. airports with an air traffic control tower. virtually due to COVID-19 tool. This milestone requires pandemic travel restrictions. See close coordination with By weighting some categories of data collected Absolute safety is elusive, but approachable. the Safety Promotion section for FAA Enterprise Information involving runway excursions, incursions, and surface We plan to get closer every year. The first step more information and a list of Management and will carry incidents, the Surface Safety Metric sorts information in our strategic approach to safety is to collect the SFRSAT airports. over from FY20 to FY21. and analyze data generated by aviation activity for a better understanding of what is driving the most in the National Airspace System (NAS). risk in the system. The weighting is based on severity Currently, we use data collected from runway Absolute safety is incursions (RI) and surface incidents to sort Safety Assurance: Combined Risk and Event Count runway incursions into categories established by elusive, but approachable. the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as A, B, C, and D events. A and B are considered and frequency to create a combined risk index. The 3500 140 severe and attract the most attention. However, data showed that because we see and mitigate more the four categories present a significant limitation; incidents, cumulative risk decreases. 3000 120 they do not adequately measure the risk to people and property in the NAS. For example, C and D CLICK HERE TO SEE THE SURFACE SAFETY METRIC 2500 100 events may at times indicate greater risk. WEIGHTING SCHEME DOCUMENT. 2000 80 In response to this limitation, the Surface Beginning in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019, the Surface Safety Metric was created to measure safety Safety Metric will be the FAA’s main metric for the 1500 60 performance of the NAS in the runway public reporting of risk in the NAS. It builds on the categories established by ICAO but allows the FAA, environment. Unlike existing metrics that focus 1000 40 primarily on RIs, the Surface Safety Metric through its Safety Management System (SMS), Weight Combined incorporates all types of relevant runway safety to sort data differently and focus on events with 500 20 events that occur in the runway environment. outcomes such as injury and/or aircraft damage, according to their proximity to a fatal accident. By Count Accidentsof and Incidents 0 0 This technique helped us discover the risks posed incorporating every type of runway safety event, the by a growing number of aircraft taking off, landing, Surface Safety Metric reflects the overall safety of ‘97 ‘98 ‘99 ‘00 ‘01 ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 ‘12 ‘13 ‘14 ‘15 ‘16 or taxiing on the wrong surface. Our reaction to the NAS in the runway environment. With the use that discovery will be discussed further in the of this comprehensive metric, the FAA is setting an Combined Accident Count Combined Weight Safety Risk Management, Safety Policy, and innovative example that can be shared internationally Safety Promotions sections below. to increase runway safety worldwide. Combined Incident Count Poly. (Combined Weight [MA]) 8 2018-20202018-2020 National Runway Safety Plan Strategic Objectives 2018-2020 National Runway Safety Plan Strategic Objectives 9 MILESTONES 2. Safety Risk The Runway Safety Group’s objective is to take steps to continuously achieve all initiatives established within the 2020 time frame and beyond. In the spirit of continuing forward, all initiatives 2020 are documented for accountability in the SURFACE SAFETY GROUP (SSG) INITIATIVE TRACKING DOCUMENT. Management MITIGATION PLAN DEVELOPMENT Objective: Remain the global leader in implementing ASDE-X Taxiway Arrival Pre-ATAP mitigation plans and technology that manage or reduce Prediction (ATAP) Enhancement 500ft Threshold the risk of airport operations. ATAP is an enhancement