DATA MINING IN PROMOTING FLIGHT SAFETY Olli Sjöblom TURUN YLIOPISTON JULKAISUJA – ANNALES UNIVERSITATIS TURKUENSIS Sarja - ser. E osa - tom. 5 | Oeconomica | Turku 2016 University of Turku Turku School of Economics Department of Management and Entrepreneurship, Information Systems Science Supervised by Professor Reima Suomi Turku School of Economics Turku University Turku, Finland Reviewed by Professor Ari Visa Director Regis Cabral Tampere University of Technology FEPRO - Funding for European Projects Opponent Professor Ari Visa Tampere University of Technology Cover photo: Mikael Häggblom The originality of this thesis has been checked in accordance with the University of Turku quality assurance system using the Turnitin OriginalityCheck service. ISBN 978-951-29-6546-5 (PRINT) ISBN 978-951-29-6547-2 (PDF) ISSN 2343-3159 (Painettu/Print) ISSN 2343-3167 (Verkkojulkaisu/Online) Painosalama Oy - Turku, Finland 2016 3 ABSTRACT The incredible rapid development to huge volumes of air travel, mainly because of jet airliners that appeared to the sky in the 1950s, created the need for system- atic research for aviation safety and collecting data about air traffic. The struc- tured data can be analysed easily using queries from databases and running these results through graphic tools. However, in analysing narratives that often give more accurate information about the case, mining tools are needed. The analysis of textual data with computers has not been possible until data mining tools have been developed. Their use, at least among aviation, is still at a moderate level. The research aims at discovering lethal trends in the flight safety reports. The narratives of 1,200 flight safety reports from years 1994 – 1996 in Finnish were processed with three text mining tools. One of them was totally language inde- pendent, the other had a specific configuration for Finnish and the third originally created for English, but encouraging results had been achieved with Spanish and that is why a Finnish test was undertaken, too. The global rate of accidents is stabilising and the situation can now be regard- ed as satisfactory, but because of the growth in air traffic, the absolute number of fatal accidents per year might increase, if the flight safety will not be improved. The collection of data and reporting systems have reached their top level. The focal point in increasing the flight safety is analysis. The air traffic has generally been forecasted to grow 5 – 6 per cent annually over the next two decades. Dur- ing this period, the global air travel will probably double also with relatively con- servative expectations of economic growth. This development makes the airline management confront growing pressure due to increasing competition, signifi- cant rise in fuel prices and the need to reduce the incident rate due to expected growth in air traffic volumes. All this emphasises the urgent need for new tools and methods. All systems provided encouraging results, as well as proved challenges still to be won. Flight safety can be improved through the development and utilisation of sophisticated analysis tools and methods, like data mining, using its results sup- porting the decision process of the executives. Keywords: Data Mining, Text Mining, Flight Safety, Analysis, Decision Support, Strategic Management 4 5 TIIVISTELMÄ Lentoliikenne kasvoi huomattavasti 1950-luvulla pääasiassa suihkumatkustaja- koneiden myötä, mikä aiheutti poikkeamatietojen järjestelmällisen keräämisen ja tutkimuksen tarpeen. Määrämuotoinen tieto voidaan helposti analysoida tietokan- takyselyillä esittäen tulokset käyttäen graafisia työkaluja, mutta tekstianalyysiin, jonka avulla tapauksista saadaan usein tarkempia tietoja, tarvitaan louhintatyöka- luja. Tekstimuotoisen tiedon automaattinen analysointi ei ole ollut mahdollista ennen louhintatyökalujen kehittämistä. Silti niiden käyttö, ainakin ilmailun piiris- sä, on edelleen vähäistä. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli havaita vaarallisia kehityskulkuja lentoturvalli- suusraporteissa. 1 200 lentoturvallisuusraportin selostusosiot vuosilta 1994 – 1996 käsiteltiin kolmella tekstinlouhintatyökalulla. Yksi näistä oli täysin kieli- riippumaton, toisessa oli lisäosa, jossa oli mahdollisuus käsitellä suomen kieltä ja kolmas oli rakennettu alun perin ainoastaan englanninkielisen tekstin louhintaan, mutta espanjan kielellä saavutettujen rohkaisevien tulosten pohjalta päätettiin kokeilla myös suomenkielistä tekstiä. Lento-onnettomuuksien määrä liikenteeseen nähden on vakiintumassa maail- manlaajuisesti katsottuna ja turvallisuustaso voidaan katsoa tyydyttäväksi. Kui- tenkin liikenteen kasvaessa myös onnettomuuksien määrä lisääntyy vuosittain, mikäli lentoturvallisuutta ei kyetä parantamaan. Turvallisuustiedon kerääminen ja raportointijärjestelmät ovat jo saavuttaneet huippunsa. Analysoinnin paranta- minen on avain lentoturvallisuuden parantamiseen. Lentoliikenteen on ennustettu kasvavan 5 – 6 prosenttia vuodessa seuraavien kahden vuosikymmenen ajan. Samana aikana lentoliikenne saattaa kaksinkertaistua jopa vaatimattomimpien talouskasvuennusteiden mukaan. Tällainen kehitys asettaa lentoliikenteen päättä- jille yhä kasvavia paineita kiristyvän kilpailun, polttoaineiden hinnannousun ja liikenteen kasvun aiheuttaman onnettomuuksien määrän vähentämiseksi. Tämä korostaa uusien menetelmien ja työkalujen kiireellistä tarvetta. Kaikilla louhintajärjestelmillä saatiin rohkaisevia tuloksia mutta ne nostivat samalla esille haasteita, jotka tulisi vielä voittaa. Lentoturvallisuutta voidaan vie- lä parantaa käyttämällä tässä esille tuotuja analyysimenetelmiä ja –työkaluja ku- ten tiedonlouhintaa ja soveltamalla näin saatuja tuloksia johdon päätöksenteon tukena. Avainsanat: tiedonlouhinta, tekstinlouhinta, lentoturvallisuus, analysointi, pää- töksenteon tuki, strateginen johtaminen 6 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS “They will soar aloft as with eagles’ wings” Isaiah 40:31 The enthusiasm for aviation is often handed down from father to son, or adopted from other relatives or close family friends. This is true in my case as my father, Hans, was a glider pilot and flight instructor. He was one of the founder members of the contemporary Turku Flying Club, which re-emerged in the middle of the 1940s after the break caused by the war, and for which he also acted as a board member. And, as the vice-chairman of the club today, I follow in his footsteps. First and foremost, I would like to thank him and my mother Ritva, both of whom have passed away already, for the love, support and encouragement they gave me throughout their lives, especially during my master’s studies and then my doctoral studies. Efficient and safe aviation and air traffic can only be guaranteed by profes- sional and highly skilled, efficient air traffic control (ATC), equipped with func- tional information flow systems and other sophisticated tools, enabling its opera- tions. ATC provides advisory services and enforces rules in the air and at air- ports. An academic environment can be compared with that of air traffic control: the area control centre (ACC) controlling aircraft en route within a particular air- space at high altitude corresponds to the academic world, comprising universities and schools covering a wide area of responsibility and steering operations inside that area. A terminal control area (TMA) provides the ATC with services within the airspace – inside a specific radius from the airport and, in this comparison, Turku University is the TMA. Similarly, the aerodrome control tower (TWR), responsible for the traffic at the airport or airfield – with its air traffic controller – can be represented by the department of Information Systems Science and my supervisor, Professor Reima Suomi to whom I am most indebted. Alongside him, I have participated in several forms of co-operation regarding information sys- tems since the late 1980s, first as his student, when carrying out complementary studies after my MBA, then as his colleague, teaching data storage techniques to master’s degree students. During these decades of benefitting from Reima’s knowledge, not only has my research work profited, I have also had the great opportunity to have him listen to my opinions and thoughts on a variety of sub- jects and then gained from his insight. An air traffic controller is a part of a syn- 8 ergetic team that provides high quality services, similarly the professors, Jukka Heikkilä and Hannu Salmela as well as the Head of Teaching, lecturer Timo Leino, have freely offered their knowledge and made significant contributions to my dissertation process. I gratefully acknowledge their influence. The foundation of all aviation is high technology. An aviation organisation cannot survive without a highly skilled and trained maintenance department, providing specialised technical services. Without this sort of contribution, the data mining processes would have been impossible. I acknowledge the staff of Tampere Technical University Signal Processing Laboratory for mining the re- ports with GILTA and the supervision of Professors Ari Visa and Hannu Vanharanta, with Tomi Vesanen and Mika Koistinen as operators. Furthermore, I extend my sincere thanks to Mr. Shahbaz Anwar, the CEO and founder of Poly- Vista, Inc., Houston, Texas, for readily providing data mining services with Poly- Vista. I would also like to thank Jenny Knodell from PolyVista as well as Cap- tain Jeff Hamlett, Senior Manager in Flight Safety from Southwest Airlines, for his comments about applying in practice the mining system mentioned