ACRP IdeaHub Research Projects

Investigate if additional data can be collected by these new survey techniques: Develop preferred practices on how to use emerging mobile technologies to collect passenger level of service information in a minimally invasive manner and investigate if new techniques improve (or impede) passenger response rates. Other topics that could be covered include: using ethnographic data collection techniques to understand passenger... more »

The objective of this research is to improve airport employee
performance under conditions of task saturation. While task saturation
is listed as a top 10 safety concern, there is little to no evidence
that there are interventions in place to mitigate its impact on human
performance. This research will produce an intervention (training, tool,
etc.) that will be made available to airports nationwide for
their use. The... more »

Stipends are used in competitive bids to encourage bidders to submit their best ideas in a procurement. Better understanding of the use and value of stipends would be useful to airport management, boards and policymakers to determine if compensating losing bidders for their intellectual property would advance practice and improve design and project delivery.

Bridge structures over taxiways are becoming more common at large airports. DEN, SEA, and LGA all have bridges that are complete or under construction. There is very little guidance on structures, fire codes for aircraft fueling in vicinity of the bridge, and clearances for OFA and TSA, particularly vertically. Would like to help develop some guidance, in particular with fueling and vertical clearances, and faa required... more »

Some passengers with special needs are loosing autonomy by using the actual costly and somehow inefficient manual service for reduced mobility passengers. The idea novelty is to suggest an automated solution using either existing airport means or advanced technlogy solutions for providing such a service. The architectural concept of the system is scallable in order to easilly implement any service for any specific need.... more »

Blockchain technology (e.g., open source Enterprise Ethereum) can be used as a vendor neutral integration layer to secure IoT devices to prevent malicious attacks, enable myriad IoT devices installed at the airports to work together in concert to unlock new value creation between different parties, and reward IoT operators for the value produced by data.

Wheel chairs and wheel chair pushers abound in airports as the population ages. Aside from the logistics and facilities issues such as large font signage and cell phone apps, the more serious issues of passengers becoming disoriented, dealing with dementia that has not been diagnosed, losing carry-on bags or falling victim to scams while traveling are becoming more problematic. Airports require more guidance to detect... more »

Passenger load factors are determined and published by the airlines as the RPK's divided by the ASK's, but what goes into the denominator and numerator and how could they be impacted.

Conduct research on the hazards, risks, and causes of accidents impacting the movement of employees, users, and stakeholders about an airport. A focus of the research should be on people moving infrastructure, such as elevators, escalators, and motorized carts; along with the causes and prevention of slips and falls.

The research would develop a comprehensive guidance on concession agreement standards and terms. The new guidebook would update existing guidance and provides guidance on economic, operational and administrative issues not previously addressed.

The objective of this applied project is to demonstrate the cost

effective utility and implementation of advanced surveillance, sensing,

or sequencing systems for terminal air traffic services.

Based on the severity of the crisis situation in airport it may not be enough to evacuate the passengers from the airport, but also to make a safe passage from the airport to their final or intermediate destination, which might include the passengers' residence, train stations, bus terminals, remote parking locations, and hotels. Though researches have been done on passenger evacuation in an airport setting, but little... more »

To create a comprehensive resource for architects, interior designers, engineers and airport operators to help them in selection of these materials for new construction or renovation of existing facilities. The guidebook should also provide guidance to airport operators and designers on how to evaluate life cycle cost implications of selecting different building materials.

The FAA's "Vision for Trajectory Based Operations", Version 2.0 dated September 2017, states that TBO will leverage NextGen improvements to make flight operations more efficient and predictable:
"TBO in 2025 depends upon use of improved data sets and greater collaboration between the FAA and its customers to enable better traffic planning and scheduling decisions. Improved data sets reflect access to new data elements,... more »

To create a comprehensive resource for architects, interior designers, engineers and airport operators to help them in selection of these materials for new construction or renovation of existing facilities. The guidebook should also provide guidance to airport operators and designers on how to evaluate life cycle cost implications of selecting different building materials.