U. S. Department of Transportation
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- Literature Review
- Previous Runway Incursion Research
- Pilots
- Controllers
- Other Airport Personnel
Overview of the DocumentThis document is divided into three major sections followed by conclusions and appendices. The first section presents the results of a review of previous runway incursion literature as well as discrete choice modeling. The second section presents descriptive statistics and the results of the cross tabulations. This addresses some of the basic distributions of the data, serves as an introduction to the data involved in the modeling, and presents some basic results. The third section details the modeling effort, including the supporting methodology. These results supplement those seen in the second section and form the basis for any conclusions drawn. Following the main body of the paper are a series of appendices. Appendix A addresses the definition of a runway incursion. Appendix B addresses additional data issues discovered during the research process. Appendix C provides additional detail on the statistical methodologies used in this report. Appendix D contains a list of identified future research needs.
The research reviewed in this section falls into two major categories. The first set of papers covers previous research on runway incursions. Understanding severity was not the main goal of these papers; rather, they focused on understanding the causes behind runway incursions. This first set of research papers provided insights into what variables or concepts might play a role in determining incident severity. These suggested variables can be further divided into policy variables – which can be directly affected to produce a change – and control variables – which are not directly affected by policy, but still play a role. The second set of papers focus on discrete choice modeling. While not necessarily in the context of runway incursions, or even aviation, this research demonstrates relevant methodology. Section 4.1 of this paper, on methodology, was heavily influenced by these papers. It is apparent from this literature review that a rigorous econometric model of runway incursion severity has not been previously developed. The previous research on runway incursions has been focused on the human factors elements that can cause runway incursions. There is also a wealth of information on modeling injury severity, mostly from the highway community. The combination of these two research traditions guided the development of a model of runway incursion severity.
Previous research on runway incursion causes been mostly conducted in the human factors arena and divides the research into three areas: pilots, controllers, and other airport personnel. The papers outlined below represent the culmination of an extensive research process. The review began with some known sources and a broad search for literature related to the causes and severity of runway incursions. These sources provided additional citations that proved to be of interest to the review process. Ultimately, however, few papers focus specifically on the causes and severity of runway incursions. The following summary attempts to provide a fair representation of the state of the practice. Cardosi and Yost produced an extensive literature review on the subject of human factors in runway incursions.11 A summary of their findings is presented here.12 Cardosi and Yost note that a common theme among the papers they reviewed was miscommunication or failure to coordinate between two controllers. In addition to that common theme, other factors such as losing track of an aircraft or forgetting its position were also cited as contributing to runway incursions. Another study (Kelly and Steinbacher 1993) focused on frequency congestion and found that many incidents were associated with blocked transmissions or incomplete messages. Lastly, Skaliotis (1991) found that the “number of incursions was not well correlated with the number of operations. It suggested that local factors at particular airports are more important than high operations at determining the risk of an accident/incident” during the time period studied. 13
DiFiore and Cardosi examined 231 reports filed by pilots or co-pilots from the Aviation System Reporting System (ASRA).14 DiFiore and Cardosi found that, by far, communication factors were cited most often overall as contributing to runway incursions. Position awareness (i.e., the pilot being aware of his or her location in the airfield) was cited next most often. The analysis then focused on certain kinds of runway incursions: crossing the hold short line, crossing the runway without a clearance, taxi into position and hold (TIPH), and entering the runway without authorization. The authors offered the broad categorizations of human factors mentioned previously, but were also able to focus on specific issues (such as misunderstanding ATC phraseology). Cardosi and Yost performed an analysis of safety data submitted by pilots. They examined 76 incident reports and found that unclear airport markings and controller-pilot miscommunication were the two most cited causes of incursions.
In addition to their literature review and analysis of pilot related human factors, Cardosi and Yost looked at reports focusing on controller-related issues.15 They found that the five most common contributing factors, in order, were (lack of) aircraft observation, coordination, communication errors, visual data, and ground operations. Following the analysis of reports, Cardosi and Yost examined the underlying report data to perform their own independent analysis. They found that the most common contributing factors were controllers forgetting about the status of a runway or an aircraft, controller-pilot communication errors, controller coordination errors, and supervisor/controller in charge working a control position simultaneously.
Scarborough, Bailey, and Pounds examined vehicle operation deviations (VODs) – where one party involved in a runway incursion is driving a ground vehicle (as opposed to an aircraft) – to attempt to find factors associated with this type of deviation.16 They used logistic regression and found a statistically significant relationship between a driver not observing markings, signals, or lighting and the presence of inclement weather. On the other hand, no relationship was found between construction outside the movement area and VODs. The Airport Cooperative Research Program, part of the Transportation Research Board, sponsored a synthesis project focused on winter operations.17 The report provides a thorough exploration of factors contributing to vehicle-aircraft incidents during winter operations. The report group factors into several broad categories, including:
The report cited poor communication (e.g., using the incorrect radio frequency, equipment mishaps, and frequency congestion), poor visibility, fatigue, time pressures (to clear the runway as quickly as possible to resume aircraft operations), and several operating factors as major causes of runway incursions during winter operation. While the report focused on winter operations, it provides insight into ground operations in general.
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