ACRP IdeaHub Research Projects

A lot of talent goes through the terminals daily. Airports can solicit targetted feedback on specific projects and initiatives from the travelers. There is no better source or time since the customers are in the right state of mind to provide feedback that affects them.

The objective of this research is to understand the impacts, opportunities, and challenges of innovative and emerging mobility on intermodal passenger facilities (including airports, rail and bus transit stations, water transit, and mobility hubs) and to identify best practices for short-, medium-, and long- range planning considerations.

Develop guidance to identify and design the necessary features of an efficient, sustainable, comprehensive, safe maintenance facility that is customized to satisfy the needs of a given airport.

Multidiscipline collaboration within the aviation industry must be aircraft centric in order to be efficient, effective, and progressive in the technological era in which we are living. The implementation of advancements in aircraft technology leads the required physical infrastructure and public policy to accommodate the technology. This synopsis explains how potential aircraft advancements and the exchange of data... more »

In accordance with the Clean Water Act, airports must responsibly manage stormwater runoff. Unlike highways, which have had extensive research on stormwater runoff, there is little data that indicates water quality of stormwater runoff from existing airports and airfields. There is preliminary indication from small studies that runoff from various airport land uses is cleaner than most regulatory staff assume, mostly... more »

The proposed research project would evaluate carbon capture and storage technologies that could be deployed at airports to help achieve "Net Zero Emissions" in the long term and to align with global emission reduction targets.

Conduct research into cost effective strategies for periodic monitoring of airspace surfaces such as TERPS 20:1 surfaces to ensure they remain clear of obstructions. Particularly at smaller rural airports that may not have staff, zoning, or significant infrastructure that would otherwise make these issues easier to manage.

Review the tools and practices currently being used to conduct airfield pavement conditions.

Further guidance on how to approach the design of airport infrastructure that is more resilient to climatic change is required. Efforts are underway both nationally and internationally to address identification of vulnerabilities and incorporating into planning documents; but there remains a gap in procedures to evaluate and determine design criteria for engineers and architects that may be more readily endorsed by funding... more »

The research would identify the best persuasive strategies, language, and media, supported by behavioral science, for successfully encouraging customers to separate waste materials at the source and reduce contamination. This would reduce the number of costly waste hauls; help rehabilitate international scrap materials markets; reduce the amount of materials being sent to landfills and incinerators; promote composting... more »

Objective is to develop airport-specific design guidelines and best practices for airport terminals and passenger facilities to make them accessible to all persons.

The goals of this research project are to 1) prepare a roadmap of sustainable organic waste management solutions, ideally according with United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) introduced Waste Hierarchy, 2) find the best available practices of food and biobased waste reduction, reuse and disposal, 3) pilot those immediate options available, 4) research considerations for the development of on-site biowaste disposal... more »

Develop a guidebook that provides strategies (best management practices) that airport operators and other stakeholders can use to manage demand placed on landside facilities (e.g. ground transportation infrastructure) in a constrained environment. The guidebook reviews existing and proposed operational, financial and logistical strategies that airport operators or other entities are permitted to use to encourage efficient... more »

Safe and rapid evacuation of passengers from an airport to a vantage locations is critical in the aftermath of an emergency event, which includes acts of terrorism, fire, earthquakes, tornado outbreak, power outrage, or bomb threat. Based on the severity of the crisis situation 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... more »

Airport operations from the curbside to the airspace are increasingly relying on data. Airport operators and their stakeholders are procuring airport operations suites that do not necessarily talk to each other (even within the same stakeholder/entity). The purpose of the Airport Operational Databases (AODB) is to create an Airport Information Center integrating various operational data for making them available to a... more »