FAA/NASA body to focus on global network for sharing real-time airspace information

A roadmap for transforming US air traffic management into a highly automated, networked precision system within 20 years has been unveiled by US government officials. The 35-page document, delivered to the US Congress, lays out a strategy for accommodating a projected tripling of air traffic operations by 2025, establishing eight focus areas to build a next-generation air traffic system (NGATS).

The Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO), led by the US Federal Aviation Administration and NASA, is steering a six-agency effort with an integrated product team (IPT) assigned to each of the eight categories: airport infrastructure, security, air traffic system, networking, safety management, environmental protection, weather forecasting and global collaboration.

The roadmap begins with a two-year phase to define top-level architecture, with the first policy decisions to be made in early 2006, followed by a five-year research and development effort.

The JPDO strategy calls for the IPTs to start finalising an airport investment and financing strategy by 2007, a demand management policy, a security architecture, an avionics roadmap and a safety framework.

A key early focus of the plan is an initiative to develop a global network for sharing airspace information in real time. The JPDO has already launched a planning effort to stage a network-enabled operations demonstration in early 2006, says JPDO director Charles Keegan. The demonstration will begin by designing a system to link air traffic monitoring systems of the FAA, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security into a single picture, he says.

STEPHEN TRIMBLE / WASHINGTON DC

Source: Flight International