Modernization Cutbacks: Program Descriptions

The recent budget proposal for FAA operations has severely impacted funding for equipment designed to enhance the nation's air traffic control system.  Below is a list of impacted equipment with descriptions of their functions and current status.

Airport Surface Detection Equipment-Model X (ASDE-X)
Project Function: Due to cost overruns and poor planning the FAA often has cut back the number of facilities originally slated to receive newer modernization tools.  In September 2005, the FAA’s Joint Resource Council (JRC) met to discuss re-baseline requests for certain modernization tools.  The JRC decided to terminate the deployment of ASDE-X (Airport Surface Detection Equipment-Model X) at 15 of the original 25 facilities scheduled to receive the system. The FAA’s new plan is to take these 15 systems and upgrade facilities that already have AMASS (Airport Movement Area Safety System)/ASDE-3 systems to a new ASDE-3X system.  As a result of this decision we are seeing increases in the estimated cost of the program as well as a prolonged deployment schedule.  The problem with this decision is that it leaves the 15 airports that were  supposed to receive an ASDE-X system without any ground radar surveillance system.  Likewise there is no guarantee that adding ASDE-X safety logic to an existing ASDE-3 system will work as envisioned.

Project Status: As a result of this decision we are seeing increases in the estimated cost of the program as well as a prolonged deployment schedule.  The problem with this decision is that it leaves the 15 airports that were  supposed to receive an ASDE-X system without any ground radar surveillance system.  Likewise there is no guarantee that adding ASDE-X safety logic to an existing ASDE-3 system will work as envisioned.

Airport Surveillance Radar-11 (ASR-11)
Project Function:  ASR-11 was scheduled to replace aging analog radars at 111 facilities (currently 5 sites are commissioned and five more are fully operational).  The FAA’s Joint Resource Council recently reduced the number of ASR-11 deployments to 66 FAA sites plus 3 Department of Defense sites and one HAATS funded site.  ASR-11 was originally designed to be in the field and deployed before STARS which is currently in operation at 29 facilities.  According to the GAO, ASR-11 reduces operational cost, improves safety, and accommodates future capacity increases while also providing surveillance information to existing systems such as STARS in terminal facilities and other systems in en route facilities.  ASR-11 was originally planned to be fully commissioned by the end of 2005 with an initial cost of $743.3 million.  However, the current schedule of deployment has been extended to 2013 while the current cost is around $916 million.  In just 4 months the FAA decreased the number of ASR-11 sites from 112 to 66, while the cost ($696.50 M) is virtually unchanged from the original estimate…a more than 40% reduction in planned radar sites.  According to the JRC, the increased cost is due to budget deferrals, update requirements, safety enhancements to equipment, along with cost estimating and risk. 

Project Status: Due to the previous budget cuts, ASR-11 has not been fully funded for several years.  Some of these budget cuts have been self inflicted as the FAA reprogrammed some of the ASR-11 budget for other functions; as in May 2004 when they moved $2.35 million to fund Essential Air Service.  Most recently, the FAA’s budget request to Congress for FY2006 was $26.2 million less than the $86.8 million that was enacted in 2005.

Controller Pilot Data Link Communications (CPDLC)
Project Function: CPDLC provides an alternative digital path between air traffic controllers and pilots for air traffic control communications.  The basic concept involves developing pre-formatted text messages that are exchanged between ATC and aircraft to direct normal activities such as altimeter and frequency changes. 

Project Status: CPDLC has been cancelled by the FAA.

Electronic Drop Tube/Electronic Flight Strip Tracking System (EDT/EFSTS)
Project Function: EDT and EFSTS are terms used to describe systems for paperless tower and TRACON operations.  Paper flight strips evolved from their beginnings as a way of capturing and transferring flight plan information from one controller to another into integral tools of the system as a whole.  Electronic systems aimed at eliminating paper strips must account for both the data they handle and the other specialized uses of current paper strips.  The ideal virtual environment must therefore replicate both the content and the physical handling of paper strips to meet the needs of all users.

Project Status: Due to FAA budget cuts, EDT/EFSTS has been indefinitely delayed at Las Vegas, Palm Beach and Phoenix.

Integrated Tower Weather System (ITWS)
Project Function: ITWS provides terminal controllers with hazardous weather detection capability to help sustain capacity in all conditions.  It provides terminal aviation system users with safety and planning products that describe current terminal weather situations, as well as offering a forecast for about 30 minutes into the future.  ITWS integrates data projects from various FAA and National Weather Service senors to achieve these capabilities.

Projet Status: Two systems were cut to save $2.4 million. 

Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS)
Project Function: LAAS provides Position, Velocity and Time (PVT) information necessary to conduct RNAV navigation in the terminal environment.  This will allow aircraft to conduct precision curved, complex and segmented approach procedures.  LAAS will enable other systems used to conduct surface movement and navigation.

Project Status: LAAS is no longer funded by the FAA.

Medium Intensity Airport Weather System (MIAWS)
Project Function: MIAWS provides terminal controllers with a real-time display of storm positions and estimated storm track products from NEXRAD data at LLWAS-RS sites to address weather information deficiencies at airports with too few flight operations to warrant a Doppler weather radar system.  Using WSP display technology, MIAWS will not only display six levels of precipitation intensity, but will also alert tower controllers when moderate or severe weather threatens airport operations.

Project Status: All pre-procurement and procurement planning activities in support of MIAWS are cancelled.

National Airspace Redesign (NAR)
Project Function: NAR is a collaborative aproach to modifying the nation's ATC system to meet or exceed the pace of technology as well as accomodate future traffic demands on our airspace.

Project Status: This project is in trouble.  The Western Pacific Region does not participate.  Memphis and Atlanta Centers have pulled out.  In Salt Lake City, the FAA cut funding for an environmental impact statement that was a precursor to designing busy airspace there and possibly adding an east-side flight pattern.

Next Generation Communications (NEXCOM)
Project Function: NEXCOM introduces digital voice capability, alleviating frequency congestion in the VHF air-to-ground frequency band.  Today, there are 760 discrete channels available on the VHF radio spectrum, spaced 25 kHz apart, which are required to serve the needs of more than 10,600 facilities across the United States.  However, it was projected that all of these channels will be committed and the communications system essentially saturated by 2010, even as demand will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. 

Project Status: Nexcom is no longer funded by the FAA.

Stand-Alone Weather System (SAWS)
Project Function: SAWS is intended to serve as backup equipment for ASOS.  It will provide wind, termperature, dew point and altimeter in case of instrument failure of the ASOS and is required by the ASOS memorandum of understanding (MOU).

Project Status: In FY04, SAWS was cut from a planned 61 installations to 32.  From FY05 through FY!2, the project was zeroed out.

Standard Terminal Automation System (STARS)
Project Function: STARS currently takes the prize for having the largest reduction in the number of deployed facilities. Originally STARS was to be deployed to 172 facilities but the FAA revised its numbers in May 2004 changing the deployment to a phased approach and reducing the deployment number to 51 facilities for Phase 1 implementation.  Before the end of 2004, the FAA updated the number of facilities and reduced it to 47 facilities. According to the GAO, STARS was delayed by 3 years and had a cost increase of $500 million due to the lack of involvement by the shareholders (users). The GAO also reported in June that STARS could finally be implemented by 2008 for Phase 1 at a cost of almost $1.5 billion dollars, $520 million more than originally projected.  Last October the Department of Transportation Inspector General reported that STARS has a cost growth of 80% at almost $1.7 billion and a final implementation date of 2012.  STARS is one of the programs that had cost growth, schedule extensions and/or performance problems that the GAO contributed to the fact that stakeholders were not sufficiently involved.  

Project Status: Currently, STARS is fully operational at 59 facilities.

Traffic Management Advisor (TMA)
Project Function: This tool is designed to assist the Traffic Management Specialists in planning, managing and sheduling arrival streams into high demand airports through time-based metering.

Project Status: Eight of the 35 Benchmark Aiports have the highest delay rates in the US and are designated as "pacing" airports.

User Request Evaluation Tool (URET)
Project Function: This system provides en route controllers with a "conflict probe" capability to assist the D-Side controllers in stategically resolving impending traffic conflictions.  In addition, URET provides an automated system that eliminates paper strips amd manages complex amounts of flight plan data electronically.

Project Status: Fielded but not used to its full potential.