Next Generation Air Transportation System: Preliminary Analysis
of Progress and Challenges Associated with the Transforamtion of
the National Airspace System (25-JUL-06, GAO-06-915T).
The health of our nation's air transportation system is critical
to our citizens and economy. However, the current approach to
managing air transportation is becoming increasingly inefficient
and operationally obsolete. In 2003, Congress created the Joint
Planning and Development Office (JPDO) to plan for and
coordinate, with federal and nonfederal stakeholders, a
transformation from the current air traffic control (ATC) system
to the "next generation air transportation system" (NGATS).
Housed within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), JPDO has
seven partner agencies that make up JPDO's senior policy
committee: the Departments of Transportation, Commerce, Defense,
and Homeland Security; FAA; the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA); and the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy. This testimony, which provides preliminary
results from GAO's ongoing work on JPDO, provides information on
(1) the status of JPDO's efforts to plan for NGATS, (2) the key
challenges facing JPDO as it moves forward with its planning
efforts, and (3) the key challenges facing FAA as it implements
the transformation while continuing its current operations. The
statement is based on GAO's analysis of JPDO documents,
interviews, and the views of a panel of experts, as well as on
past GAO work.
-------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
REPORTNUM: GAO-06-915T
ACCNO: A57447
TITLE: Next Generation Air Transportation System: Preliminary
Analysis of Progress and Challenges Associated with the
Transforamtion of the National Airspace System
DATE: 07/25/2006
SUBJECT: Air traffic control systems
Air transportation
Federal agency reorganization
Interagency relations
Strategic planning
Systems conversions
Technology modernization programs
Stakeholder consultations
Next Generation Air Transportation
System
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GAO-06-915T
* Background
* JPDO Has Made Progress in Planning for NGATS
* As Required by Vision 100, JPDO Developed an Integrated Plan
* JPDO Developed an Organization for Involving Federal and Non
* JPDO Has Begun to Leverage the Resources of Its Partner Agen
* Consistent with Vision 100, JPDO Is Developing an Enterprise
* As Required by Vision 100, JPDO Has Begun Efforts to Estimat
* JPDO Faces Leadership, Resource, and Commitment Challenges a
* Two Key JPDO Leadership Positions Are Vacant
* Leveraging Resources and Expertise Poses a Challenge over Ti
* Convincing Nonfederal Stakeholders That the Government Is Fu
* FAA Faces Institutionalization, Expertise, and Resource Chal
* Institutionalizing Recent Improvements in Management and Acq
* Despite Recent Process Improvements, FAA Faces Challenges in
* FAA Will Require Resources to Implement NGATS
* Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
* Order by Mail or Phone
Testimony
Before the Subcommittee on Aviation, Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation, U.S. Senate
United States Government Accountability Office
GAO
For Release on Delivery Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
NEXT GENERATION AIRTRANSPORTATION SYSTEM
Preliminary Analysis of Progress and Challenges Associated with the
Transformation of the National Airspace System
Statement of Gerald L. Dillingham, Ph.D., Director Physical Infrastructure
Issues
GAO-06-915T
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
We appreciate the opportunity to participate in today's hearing to discuss
the status of efforts by the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO)
to plan for and coordinate the transformation of the nation's current air
traffic control (ATC) system to the "next generation air transportation
system" (NGATS)-a system intended to safely accommodate an expected
tripling of air traffic by 2025. Authorized in 2003, JPDO is housed within
the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), whose Air Traffic Organization
(ATO) is responsible for modernizing and operating the nation's current
ATC system.1 According to Vision 100,2 the legislation that authorized
JPDO, the transformation to NGATS will be completed by 2025 with the
assistance of seven organizations that make up JPDO's senior policy
committee: the Departments of Transportation, Commerce, Defense, and
Homeland Security; FAA; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA); and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. As
JPDO plans the transformation to NGATS and coordinates the related efforts
of its partner agencies, FAA will be responsible for both implementing the
transformation and safely operating the current ATC system 24 hours a day,
7 days a week.
My statement today focuses on three key questions. (1) What is the status
of JPDO's efforts to plan for NGATS? (2) What key challenges does JPDO
face in moving forward with its planning efforts? (3) What key challenges
does FAA face in transitioning from the current ATC system and in
implementing NGATS? My statement is based on our analysis of documents
provided by JPDO and its partner agencies; the perspectives of agency
officials and stakeholders with whom we have spoken; the results of a
panel of experts that we convened; and our review of relevant literature,
including JPDO's December 2004 integrated plan and March 2006 progress
report. The statement also draws on our prior work on FAA's program for
modernizing the national airspace system, which we have listed as a
high-risk program since 1995.3 To assess JPDO's framework for facilitating
coordination among its partner agencies, obtaining the participation of
nonfederal stakeholders, and conducting technical planning for NGATS, we
compared JPDO's practices with those that we have found to be effective in
facilitating federal interagency collaboration and enterprise
architecture4 development.5 We also reviewed the National Research
Council's 2005 report on JPDO, which provided a technical assessment of
the research, development, and technology components of JPDO's integrated
plan. Later this year, we expect to issue a report on our assessment of
the status of JPDO's efforts to plan for the development of NGATS. We are
performing our work in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards.
1Although ATO is immediately responsible for modernizing the ATC system,
we will refer to FAA throughout this statement because it encompasses JPDO
and is ultimately responsible for the modernization effort.
2Pub. L. No. 108-176, Vision 100-Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act,
December 12, 2003.
3ATC modernization has remained on our high-risk list since 1995. See GAO,
High Risk Series: An Update, GAO-05-207 (Washington, D.C.: January 2005).
The following summarizes our findings to date:
o JPDO has developed a framework for planning and coordination
with its partner agencies and nonfederal stakeholders that is
consistent with the requirements of Vision 100 and with several
practices that our previous work has shown can facilitate federal
interagency collaboration and enterprise architecture development.
Vision 100 established JPDO as a planning and coordinating body
and outlined elements for creating NGATS and managing the related
work. These elements, which make up JPDO's framework, include an
integrated plan that provides a vision for NGATS, an
organizational structure and processes for leveraging the
resources and expertise of federal and nonfederal stakeholders,
and an enterprise architecture that defines the specific
requirements for NGATS.
o JPDO faces leadership, leveraging, and commitment challenges as
it moves forward with planning for NGATS. Currently, two
leadership positions critical to JPDO's success are vacant: JPDO
has not had a permanent director for over 6 months, and since the
Secretary of Transportation resigned, the senior policy committee
has been without a permanent chairperson. In addition, despite
early successes in leveraging its partner agencies' resources and
expertise for NGATS initiatives, JPDO may have difficulty
continuing to do so because its partner agencies have a variety of
missions and priorities in addition to NGATS, and JPDO does not
yet have formal, signed agreements with the agencies on their
respective roles and responsibilities. JPDO also faces the
challenge of convincing nonfederal stakeholders that the
government is fully committed to NGATS because, in the past, the
government has discontinued work on new technologies for the
national airspace system, including one technology in which a
nonfederal stakeholder had already invested.
o FAA faces challenges in institutionalizing recent improvements
in its management and acquisition processes, as well as in
obtaining the expertise and resources needed to implement NGATS.
First, the successful implementation of NGATS will depend on FAA's
incorporating the improved processes into its organizational
structure and culture. Second, FAA may not have the expertise
needed to manage the NGATS implementation effort. Our work has
identified, and FAA is considering, two approaches for addressing
this challenge-contracting with a lead systems integrator and
obtaining technical advice from federally funded research and
development corporations. Third, FAA will need resources to
implement NGATS, some of which may have to come from savings in
operating and maintaining the current ATC system.
Background
In late 2003, recognizing that the current approach to managing
air transportation is becoming increasingly inefficient and
operationally obsolete, Congress created JPDO to plan NGATS, a
system intended to accommodate the threefold increase in air
traffic demand expected by 2025. JPDO's scope is broader than that
of traditional ATC modernization in that it is "airport curb to
airport curb," encompassing such issues as security screening and
environmental concerns. Additionally, JPDO's approach will require
unprecedented collaboration and consensus among many
stakeholders-federal and nonfederal-about necessary system
capabilities, equipment, procedures, and regulations. Each of
JPDO's partner agencies will play a role in the transformation to
NGATS. For example, the Department of Defense has deployed
"network centric" systems,6 originally developed for the
battlefield, that are being considered as a conceptual framework
to provide all users of the national airspace system-FAA and the
Departments of Defense and Homeland Security-with a common view of
that system.
Vision 100 required the Secretary of Transportation to establish
JPDO within FAA to manage work related to NGATS. The Director of
JPDO reports to the FAA Administrator and to the Chief Operating
Officer within ATO. JPDO began operating in early 2004.
JPDO Has Made Progress in Planning for NGATS
JPDO has developed a framework for planning and coordination with
its partner agencies and nonfederal stakeholders that is
consistent with the requirements of Vision 100 and with several
practices that our work has shown can facilitate federal
interagency collaboration and enterprise architecture development.
This framework includes an integrated plan, an organizational
structure, and an enterprise architecture.
As Required by Vision 100, JPDO Developed an Integrated Plan
and Reported on the Progress of That Plan
Vision 100 calls for the development of an integrated plan for
NGATS and annual updates on the progress of that plan. JPDO's
partner agencies developed an integrated plan and submitted it to
Congress on December 12, 2004. The plan includes a vision
statement for meeting the predicted threefold increase in demand
for air transportation by 2025 and eight strategies that broadly
address the goals and objectives for NGATS. In March 2006, JPDO
published its first report to Congress on the progress made in
carrying out the integrated plan.
The integrated plan is consistent with effective collaboration
practices we have identified. According to our research on federal
interagency collaborations, agencies must have a clear and
compelling rationale for working together to overcome significant
differences in their missions, cultures, and established ways of
doing business. In working together to develop JPDO's integrated
plan, the partner agencies agreed on a vision statement to
transform the air transportation system and on broad statements of
future system goals, performance characteristics, and operational
concepts.
JPDO Developed an Organization for Involving Federal and Nonfederal
Stakeholders
Vision 100 includes requirements for JPDO to coordinate and
consult with its partner agencies, private sector experts, and the
public. Accordingly, JPDO established an organizational structure
to involve federal and nonfederal stakeholders throughout the
organization. This structure includes a federal interagency policy
committee, an institute for nonfederal stakeholders, and
integrated product teams (IPT) that bring together federal and
nonfederal experts to plan for and coordinate the development of
technologies that will address JPDO's eight broad strategies.
o JPDO's senior policy committee was formed and is headed by the
Secretary of Transportation, as required in Vision 100. The
committee includes senior-level officials from JPDO's partner
agencies and has met three times since its inception.
o The NGATS Institute (the Institute) was created by an agreement
between the National Center for Advanced Technologies7 and FAA to
incorporate the expertise and views of stakeholders in private
industry, state and local governments, and academia. The NGATS
Institute Management Council, composed of top officials and
representatives from the aviation community, oversees the policy
and recommendations of the Institute and provides a means for
advancing consensus positions on critical NGATS issues. In March
2006, the Institute held its first public meeting to solicit
information from the public and other interested stakeholders who
are not involved in the council or the IPTs. These types of
meetings are designed to address the Vision 100 requirement that
JPDO coordinate and consult with the public.
o The IPTs are headed by representatives of JPDO's partner
agencies and include more than 190 stakeholders from over 70
organizations, whose participation was arranged through the
Institute.
Figure 1 shows JPDO's position within FAA and the JPDO structures
that bring together federal and nonfederal stakeholders, including
the Institute and the IPTs.
4An enterprise architecture is a tool, or blueprint, for understanding and
planning complex systems. The NGATS enterprise architecture will provide
the means for coordinating among the partner agencies and private sector
manufacturers, aligning relevant research and development activities, and
integrating equipment. The enterprise architecture will describe the
current national airspace system, NGATS, and the sequence of steps needed
to implement the transformation to NGATS.
5GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance and
Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, GAO-06-15 (Washington, D.C.:
Oct. 21, 2005) and GAO, Federal Aviation Administration: Stronger
Architecture Program Needed to Guide Systems Modernization Efforts,
GAO-05-266 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 29, 2005).
Background
6Network-centric systems aim to exploit technical advances in information
technology and telecommunications to improve situational awareness and the
speed of decision making.
JPDO Has Made Progress in Planning for NGATS
As Required by Vision 100, JPDO Developed an Integrated Plan and Reported on the
Progress of That Plan
JPDO Developed an Organization for Involving Federal and Nonfederal Stakeholders
7The National Center for Advanced Technologies is a nonprofit unit within
the Aerospace Industries Association.
Figure 1: Organization of JPDO
JPDO's organizational structure incorporates some of the practices we have
found effective for federal interagency collaborations. For example, our
work has shown that mutually reinforcing or joint strategies can help
align partner agencies' activities, core processes, and resources to
accomplish a common outcome. Each of the eight IPTs is aligned with one of
the eight strategies outlined in JPDO's integrated plan, and each is
headed by a partner agency that has taken the lead on a specific strategy.
Our research has also found that collaborating agencies should identify
the resources needed to initiate or sustain their collaborative effort. To
leverage human resources, JPDO has staffed the various levels of its
organization-including JPDO's board, the IPTs, and technical
divisions-with partner agency employees, many of whom work part time for
JPDO. Finally, our work has shown that involving stakeholders can, among
other things, increase their support for a collaborative effort. The
Institute provides for involving nonfederal stakeholders, including the
public, in planning NGATS.
JPDO Has Begun to Leverage the Resources of Its Partner Agencies for NGATS
Vision 100 requires JPDO to coordinate NGATS-related programs across the
partner agencies. To address this requirement, JPDO conducted an initial
interagency review of its partner agencies' research and development
programs during July 2005 to identify work that could support NGATS.
Through this process, JPDO identified early opportunities that could be
pursued during fiscal year 2007 to coordinate and minimize the duplication
of research programs across the partner agencies and produce tangible
results for NGATS. For example, one identified opportunity is to align
aviation weather research across FAA, NASA, and the Departments of
Commerce and Defense; develop a common weather capability; and harmonize
and incorporate into NGATS those agency programs designed to seamlessly
integrate weather information and aircraft weather mitigation systems. In
addition, the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B)8 and
System Wide Information System (SWIM)9 programs at FAA were identified as
opportunities for accelerated funding to produce tangible results for
NGATS. JPDO is currently working with the Office of Management and Budget
to develop a systematic means of reviewing the partner agencies' budget
requests so that the NGATS-related funding in each request can easily be
identified. Such a process would help the Office of Management and Budget
consider NGATS as a unified federal investment, rather than as disparate
line items distributed across several agencies' budget requests.
8ADS-B is a surveillance technology that transmits an aircraft's identity,
position, velocity, and intent to other aircraft and to ATC systems on the
ground, thereby enabling pilots and controllers to have a common picture
of airspace and traffic. By providing pilots with a display that shows the
location of nearby aircraft, the system enables pilots to collaborate in
decision making with controllers, safely allowing reduced aircraft
separation and thereby increasing capacity within the national airspace
system.
9SWIM is expected to help in the transition to network-centric operations
by providing the infrastructure and associated policies and standards to
enable information sharing among all authorized system users, such as the
airlines, civilian government agencies, and the military.
JPDO's effort to leverage its partner agencies' resources for NGATS
demonstrates another practice important to sustaining collaborations. Our
work on collaborations has found that collaborating agencies, by assessing
their relative strengths and limitations, can identify opportunities for
leveraging each others' resources and thus obtain benefits that would not
be available if they were working separately. JPDO's first interagency
review of its partner agencies' research and development programs has
facilitated the leveraging of technological resources for NGATS. The
budget process under development with OMB provides a further opportunity
to leverage resources for NGATS.
Consistent with Vision 100, JPDO Is Developing an Enterprise Architecture
Vision 100 requires JPDO to create a multiagency research and development
roadmap for the transition to NGATS. To comply with Vision 100, JPDO has
been working on an enterprise architecture and expects to complete an
early version of the architecture by September 2006. Many of JPDO's future
activities will depend on the robustness and timeliness of this
architecture development. The enterprise architecture will describe FAA's
operation of the current national airspace system, JPDO's plans for NGATS,
and the sequence of steps needed for the transformation to NGATS. The
enterprise architecture will provide the means for coordinating among the
partner agencies and private sector manufacturers, aligning relevant
research and development activities, and integrating equipment.
JPDO has taken several important steps to develop the enterprise
architecture-one of the most critical planning documents in the NGATS
effort. For example, JPDO has drafted a concept of operations-a document
that describes the operational transformations needed to achieve the
overall goals of NGATS. JPDO has used this document to identify key
research and policy issues for NGATS. For example, the concept of
operations identifies several issues associated with automating the ATC
system, including the need for a backup plan in case automation fails, the
responsibilities and liabilities of different stakeholders during an
automation failure, and the level of monitoring needed by pilots when
automation is ensuring safe separation between aircraft. As the concept of
operations matures, it will be important for air traffic controllers and
other affected stakeholders to provide their perspectives on this effort
so that needed adjustments can be made in a timely manner. JPDO officials
recognize the importance of obtaining stakeholders' comments on the
concept of operations and are currently incorporating stakeholders'
comments into the concept of operations. JPDO expects to release its
initial concept of operations by the end of July.
Another step that JPDO has taken to develop the enterprise architecture is
to form an Evaluation and Analysis Division (EAD), composed of FAA and
NASA employees and contractors. This division is assembling a suite of
models to help JPDO refine its plans for NGATS and iteratively narrow the
range of potential solutions. For example, EAD has used modeling to begin
studying how possible changes in the duties of key personnel, such as air
traffic controllers, could affect the workload and performance of others,
such as airport ground personnel. According to JPDO officials, the change
in the roles of pilots and controllers is the most important human factors
issue involved in creating NGATS. JPDO officials noted that the Agile
Airspace and Safety IPTs include human factors specialists and that JPDO's
chief architect has a background in human factors. However, EAD has not
yet begun to model the effect of the shift in roles on pilots' performance
because, according to an EAD official, a suitable model has not yet been
incorporated into the modeling tool suite. According to EAD, addressing
this issue is necessary, but will be difficult because data on pilot
behavior are not readily available for use in creating such models.
Furthermore, EAD has not yet studied the training implications of various
NGATS-proposed solutions because further definition of the concept of
operations for these solutions is needed. As the concept of operations and
enterprise architecture mature, EAD will be able to study the extent to
which new air traffic controllers will have to be trained to operate both
the old and the new equipment.
To develop and refine the enterprise architecture for NGATS, JPDO is
following an effective technology development practice that we identified
and applied to enterprise architecture development. This phased, "build a
little, test a little" approach is similar to a process we have advocated
for FAA's major system acquisition programs. This phased approach will
also allow JPDO to incorporate evolving market forces and technologies in
its architecture and thus better manage change. Consequently, additional
refinements are expected to be made to the enterprise architecture.
As Required by Vision 100, JPDO Has Begun Efforts to Estimate the Costs of NGATS
Vision 100 requires JPDO to identify the anticipated expenditures for
developing and deploying NGATS. To begin estimating these expenditures
realistically, JPDO is holding a series of investment analysis workshops
with stakeholders to obtain their input on potential NGATS costs. The
first workshop, held in April 2006, was for commercial and business
aviation, equipment manufacturers, and ATC systems developers. The second
workshop is planned for August for operators of lower-performance aircraft
used in both commercial and noncommercial operations. The third workshop,
planned for early September, will focus on airports and other local,
state, and regional planning bodies.
Although these workshops will help JPDO develop a range of potential costs
for NGATS, a mature enterprise architecture is needed to provide the
foundation for developing NGATS costs. Several unknown factors will drive
these costs. According to JPDO, one of these drivers is the technologies
expected to be included in NGATS. Some of these technologies are more
complex and thus more expensive to implement than others. A second driver
is the sequence for replacing current technologies with NGATS
technologies. A third driver is the length of time required for the
transformation to NGATS, since a longer period would impose higher costs.
JPDO's first draft of its enterprise architecture, expected in September
2006, could reduce some of these variables, thereby allowing improved,
albeit still preliminary, estimates of NGATS' costs.
Although the enterprise architecture for NGATS is not yet complete, both
FAA and its Research, Engineering and Development Advisory Committee
(REDAC) have developed preliminary cost estimates, which officials of both
organizations have emphasized are not yet endorsed by any agency. FAA
estimates that the facilities and equipment cost to maintain the ATC
system and implement the transformation to NGATS will be about $66
billion, or about $50 billion in constant 2005 dollars. The annual cost
would average $2.7 billion per year in constant 2005 dollars from fiscal
year 2007 through fiscal year 2025, or about $200 million more each year
than FAA's fiscal year 2006 facilities and equipment appropriation.
REDAC's Financing NGATS Working Group has developed a $15 billion average
annual cost estimate for NGATS that includes costs not only for facilities
and equipment but also for operations; airport improvement; and research,
engineering, and development-the remaining three components of FAA's
appropriation. As table 1 indicates, the working group began with FAA's
facilities and equipment estimate and went on to calculate the remaining
costs for FAA to maintain the current ATC system and implement the
transformation to NGATS. REDAC's estimate for NGATS's total cost averages
about $1 billion more annually than FAA's total appropriations for fiscal
year 2006.
Table 1: FAA's and REDAC's Cost Estimates for NGATS
Dollars in billions
FAA REDACa
Total NGATS Average annual Total Average
cost cost NGATS cost annual cost
Facilities and equipment $50.5 $2.7 $50.5 $2.7
Operations b b $162.1 $8.5
Airport improvement b b $67.5 $3.6
Research, engineering, b b $12.4 $0.7
and development
Total b b $292.5 $15.5
Source: GAO analysis of FAA and REDAC information.
aThis is the working group's estimate under its "base case" scenario,
which assumes that FAA's operations cost would increase between 2006 and
2010, but then become constant through 2025 as productivity increases
offset the higher cost of increased demand. The working group also
calculated a lower-cost "best case" scenario and a higher-cost "worst
case" scenario using differing assumptions of productivity gains.
bFAA did not estimate these costs.
Besides being preliminary, these estimates are incomplete-FAA's more than
REDAC's because FAA's does not include any costs other than those for
facilities and equipment. An FAA official acknowledged that the agency
would likely incur additional costs, such as for safety certifications or
operational changes responding to new NGATS technologies. Additionally,
FAA's facilities and equipment cost estimate assumes that the intermediate
technology development work, performed to date by NASA, has been
completed. As I will discuss shortly, it is currently unclear who will now
perform this work, but if FAA assumes responsibility for the work, REDAC
has estimated additional FAA funding needs of at least $100 million a
year. Furthermore, neither FAA's nor REDAC's estimate includes the other
partner agencies' costs to implement NGATS, such as those that the
Department of Homeland Security might incur to develop and implement new
security technologies. Finally, these estimates treat NGATS's development
and implementation period as an isolated event. Consequently, the costs
drop dramatically toward 2025. In reality, officials who developed these
estimates acknowledge that planning for the subsequent "next generation"
system will likely be underway as 2025 approaches and the actual
modernization costs could therefore be higher in this time frame than
these estimates indicate.
JPDO Faces Leadership, Resource, and Commitment Challenges as It Moves Forward
with Planning for NGATS
JPDO faces several challenges in planning for NGATS, including addressing
leadership vacancies, leveraging resources and expertise from its partner
agencies, and convincing nonfederal stakeholders that the government is
fully committed to NGATS.
Two Key JPDO Leadership Positions Are Vacant
JPDO has not had a permanent director since January 2006 and, with the
recent resignation of the Secretary of Transportation, the senior policy
committee is without a permanent chairperson. Our work has shown that, to
overcome barriers to interagency coordination, committed leadership by
individuals at the top of all involved organizations is critical.
Leadership will also be important to provide a "champion" for JPDO and to
sustain the partner agencies' focus on and contributions to the
transformation to NGATS. Moreover, without a chairperson of the senior
policy committee, no one within JPDO is responsible for sustaining JPDO's
collaboration and overseeing its work.
These vacancies raise concerns about the continued progress of JPDO and
NGATS. After ATO was authorized, we reported that without a chief
operating officer, FAA was unable to move forward with the new air traffic
organization-that is, to bring together the ATC system's acquisition and
operating functions, as intended, into a viable performance-based
organization (PBO).10 This PBO was designed to be part of the solution to
the chronic schedule delays, cost overruns, and performance shortfalls in
FAA's ATC modernization program. We believe that filling the two vacant
positions is critical to ensure continued progress for JPDO and NGATS.
10GAO, National Airspace System: Current Efforts and Proposed Changes to
Improve Performance of FAA's Air Traffic Control System; GAO-03-542
(Washington, D.C.: May 30, 2003).
Leveraging Resources and Expertise Poses a Challenge over Time
JPDO officials view leveraging the partner agencies' resources and
expertise as one of their most significant challenges. According to JPDO
officials, leveraging efforts have worked well so far, but JPDO's need for
resources and expertise will increase with the development of NGATS, and
for at least two reasons, JPDO may have difficulty meeting this need.
First, JPDO's partner agencies have a variety of missions and priorities
in addition to NGATS, and their priorities may change. Recently, for
example, NASA reduced its aeronautics budget and decided to focus on
fundamental11 research, in part because the agency believes such research
is more in keeping with its mission and unique capabilities. These changes
occurred even though NASA's current reauthorization act requires the
agency to align its aviation research projects to directly support NGATS
goals. In light of the changes, it is unclear what fundamental research
NASA will perform to support NGATS and who will perform the development
steps for that research-that is, the validation and demonstration that
must take place before a new technology can be transferred to industry and
incorporated into a product. JPDO and FAA officials said that not enough
is understood about NASA's plans to assess the impact of NASA's action on
NGATS, but many experts told us that NASA's new focus on fundamental
research creates a gap in the technology development continuum. Some
believe that FAA has neither the research and development infrastructure
nor the funding to do this work. As I previously mentioned, REDAC, in a
draft report, estimated that FAA would need at least $100 million annually
in increased funding to perform this research and development work. REDAC
further estimated that establishing the necessary infrastructure within
FAA could delay the implementation of NGATS by 5 years.
Second, JPDO may have difficulty leveraging its partner agencies'
resources and expertise because it does not yet have formal, long-term
agreements with the agencies on their roles and responsibilities in
creating NGATS. According to JPDO officials, they are working to establish
memorandums of understanding (MOU) signed by the heads of the partner
agencies that will broadly define the partner agencies' roles and
responsibilities at a high level. JPDO is also developing more specific
MOUs with individual partner agencies that lay out expectations for
support on NGATS components, such as information sharing through
network-centric operations.
11NASA uses the term fundamental to refer to research that includes
continued long-term, scientific study in core areas such as physics,
chemistry, materials, experimental techniques, and computational
techniques to enable new capabilities and technologies for individual and
multiple disciplines.
Obtaining the specialized expertise of some stakeholders poses an
additional challenge for JPDO. Air traffic controllers, for example, will
play a key role in NGATS, but their union is not participating in JPDO.
Currently, the ATC system relies primarily on air traffic controllers to
direct pilots to maintain safe separation between aircraft. Under NGATS,
this premise could change and, accordingly, JPDO has recognized the need
for human factors research on issues such as how tasks should be allocated
between humans and automated systems and how the existing allocation of
responsibilities between pilots and air traffic controllers might change.
The input of current air traffic controllers who have recent experience
controlling aircraft is important in considering human factors and safety
issues because of the controllers' familiarity with existing operating
conditions.
The air traffic controllers' labor union, the National Air Traffic
Controllers Association (NATCA), has not participated in NGATS since June
2005, when FAA terminated a labor liaison program that assigned air
traffic controllers to major system acquisition program offices and to
JPDO. FAA had determined that the benefits of the program were not great
enough to justify its cost. The NGATS Institute Management Council
includes a seat for the union, but a NATCA official told us that the
union's head had been unable to attend the council's meetings. According
to JPDO officials, the council has left a seat open in hopes that the
controllers will participate in NGATS as the new labor-management
agreement between NATCA and FAA is implemented.
Convincing Nonfederal Stakeholders That the Government Is Fully Committed to
NGATS Presents Another Challenge
Convincing nonfederal stakeholders that the government is fully committed
to NGATS poses a challenge because, in the past, the government has
stopped some modernization efforts, including one in which an airline had
already invested in supporting technologies. Specifically, FAA developed a
datalink communications system that transmitted scripted e-mail-like
messages between controllers and pilots. One airline equipped some of its
aircraft with this new technology, but because of funding cuts, among
other things, FAA canceled the program. Moreover, as we have reported,12
some aviation stakeholders have expressed concern that FAA may not follow
through with its airspace redesign efforts and are hesitant to invest in
equipment unless they are sure that FAA will remain committed to its
efforts. One expert suggested that the government might mitigate this
issue by making an initial investment in a specific technology before
requesting that airlines or other industry stakeholders purchase
equipment.
Stakeholders' belief that the government is fully committed to NGATS will
be important as efforts to implement NGATS technologies move forward.
Achieving many of the benefits of NGATS will require users of the
system-airlines and general aviation-to purchase NGATS-compatible
technologies, such as ADS-B. This new air traffic surveillance system,
which JPDO has identified as one of the early core technologies for NGATS,
requires aircraft to be equipped with components that will be implemented
in two phases. FAA anticipates significant cost savings from the
implementation of the first phase, but the airlines do not expect to
benefit until the second phase is complete. The technology should then
allow pilots to fly more precise routes at night and in poor visual
conditions. Another early core technology for NGATS, SWIM, is also
intended to produce benefits for users, but again, it is not expected to
do so for many years. Nonfederal stakeholders' support for these and other
NGATS technologies will be important, and their support will depend, in
part, on their assurance of the government's full commitment.
FAA Faces Institutionalization, Expertise, and Resource Challenges as It
Transitions to NGATS
FAA faces challenges in implementing NGATS, including institutionalizing
recent improvements in its management and acquisition processes, acquiring
expertise to implement highly complex systems, and achieving cost savings
to help fund NGATS technologies.
12GAO, National Airspace System: Transformation will Require Cultural
Change, Balanced Funding Priorities, and Use of All Available Management
Tools, GAO-06-154 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 14, 2005).
Institutionalizing Recent Improvements in Management and Acquisition Processes
Will Be Critical to the Successful Implementation of NGATS
With the establishment of ATO and the appointment of a Chief Operating
Officer (COO) for it, FAA put a new management structure in place and
established more businesslike management and acquisition processes to
address the cost, schedule, and performance shortfalls that have plagued
ATC modernization over the years. Under the new structure, FAA is a
flatter organization, with fewer management layers, and managers are in
closer contact with the services they deliver. FAA has also taken some
steps to break down the vertical lines of authority, or organizational
stovepipes, that we found hindered communication and coordination across
FAA. For example, the COO holds daily meetings with the managers of ATO's
departments and holds the managers collectively responsible for the
success of ATO through the performance management system.
FAA has revised its management processes to increase accountability. For
example, it has established a cost accounting system and made the units
that deliver services within each department responsible for managing
their own costs. Thus, each unit manager develops an operating budget and
is held accountable for holding costs within specific targets. Managers
track the costs of their unit's operations, facilities and equipment, and
overhead and use this information to determine the costs of the services
their unit provides. Managers are evaluated and rewarded according to how
well they hold their costs within established targets. Our work has shown
that it is important, when implementing organizational transformations, to
use a performance management system to assure accountability for change.13
Finally, FAA is revising its acquisition processes, as we recommended,14
and taking steps to improve oversight, operational efficiency, and cost
control. To ensure executive-level oversight of all key decisions, FAA has
revised its Acquisition Management System to incorporate key decision
points in a knowledge-based product development process. Moreover, as we
have reported, an executive council now reviews major acquisitions before
they are sent to FAA's Joint Resources Council.15 To better manage cost
growth, this executive council also reviews breaches of 5 percent or more
in a project's cost, schedule, or performance. FAA has issued guidance on
how to develop and use pricing, including guidelines for disclosing the
levels of uncertainty and imprecision that are inherent in cost estimates
for major ATC systems. Additionally, FAA has begun to base funding
decisions for system acquisitions on a system's expected contribution to
controlling operating costs. Finally, FAA is creating a training framework
for its acquisition workforce that mirrors effective human capital
practices that we have identified, and the agency is taking steps to
measure the effectiveness of its training.
13GAO-03-542.
14GAO, Air Traffic Control: FAA's Acquisition Management Has Improved, but
Policies and Oversight Need Strengthening to Help Ensure Results,
GAO-05-23 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 12, 2004).
15 GAO-05-23 .
Since 2004, FAA has met its acquisitions performance goal-to have 80
percent of its system acquisitions on schedule and within 10 percent of
budget. To sustain this record, FAA will need to institutionalize its
reforms-that is, provide for their duration beyond the current
administration at FAA and ATO by ensuring that the reforms are fully
integrated into the agency's structure and processes at all levels and
have become part of its organizational culture. Our work has shown that
successfully institutionalizing change in large public and private
organizations can take 5 to 7 years or more.16
Despite Recent Process Improvements, FAA Faces Challenges in Obtaining the
Expertise Needed to Implement a System as Complex as NGATS
In the past, a lack of expertise contributed to shortfalls in FAA's
management of ATC modernization projects. Although the personnel
flexibilities that Congress authorized in 1995 allowed FAA to establish
criteria for outstanding performance and match industry pay scales for
needed expertise, industry experts have questioned whether FAA will have
the technical expertise needed to implement NGATS-a task of unprecedented
complexity, according to JPDO, FAA, and other aviation experts. In 2004,
we found that FAA could not ensure that its own best practices were
consistently used in managing acquisitions and, as a result, its major
acquisitions were still at risk of cost overruns, schedule slippages, or
performance shortfalls.17 These findings are consistent with concerns
about the expertise of acquisition managers governmentwide. According to a
2005 study by the Merit Systems Protection Board,18 at least 50 percent of
the government personnel who currently manage technical contracts reported
needing training in areas such as contract law, developing requirements,
requesting bids, developing bid selection criteria and price
determinations, and monitoring contractor performance.
16GAO, Results-Oriented Cultures: Implementation Steps to Assist Mergers
and Organizational Transformations, GAO-03-669 (Washington, D.C.: July 2,
2003).
17 GAO-05-23 .
18U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, Contracting Officer
Representatives: Managing the Government's Technical Experts to Achieve
Positive Contract Outcomes (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 2005).
Recognizing the complexity of the NGATS implementation effort and the
possibility that FAA may not have the in-house expertise to manage it
without assistance, we have identified potential approaches for
supplementing FAA's capabilities. One of these approaches is for FAA to
contract with a lead systems integrator (LSI). Generally, an LSI is a
prime contractor that would help to ensure that the discrete systems used
in NGATS will operate together and whose responsibilities may include
designing system solutions, developing requirements, and selecting major
system and subsystem contractors. The government has used LSIs before for
programs that require the integration of multiple complex systems. Our
research indicates that although LSIs have certain advantages, such as the
knowledge, understanding, skills, and ability to integrate functions
across various systems, their use also entails certain risks. For example,
because an LSI may have significantly more responsibility than a prime
contractor usually does, careful oversight is necessary to ensure that the
government's interests are protected and that conflicts of interest are
avoided. Consequently, selecting, assigning responsibilities to, and
managing an LSI could pose significant challenges for JPDO and FAA.
Another approach that we have identified involves obtaining technical
advice from federally funded research and development corporations to help
the agency oversee and manage prime contractors. These nonprofit
corporations are chartered to provide long-term technical advice to
government agencies in accordance with various statutory and regulatory
rules to ensure independence and prevent conflicts of interest.
FAA officials indicated that they are considering at least these two
approaches to help address any possible gaps the agency may have in its
technical expertise. Given the complexity of implementing NGATS, we
believe that FAA's consideration of these approaches to filling any gaps
in its technical expertise is appropriate. We believe that either of these
approaches could reduce the risks associated with implementing NGATS.
FAA Will Require Resources to Implement NGATS
The cost of operating and maintaining the current ATC system while
implementing NGATS will be another important challenge in transitioning to
NGATS-a system that, as noted, is broader in scope than the current ATC
system and will require funding for security technologies and
environmental activities as well as ATC technologies. Although additional
funding for the current ATC system and for NGATS may come from increased
congressional appropriations, some industry analysts expect that most of
the funds for implementing NGATS will have to come from savings in
operating and maintaining the current ATC system.
FAA is currently seeking to reduce costs by introducing infrastructure and
operational efficiencies and expects to use the savings from these efforts
to help fund the implementation of NGATS. For example, FAA has begun to
decommission ground-based navigational aids, such as compass locators,
outer markers, and nondirectional radio beacons, as it begins to move
toward a satellite-based navigation system. In fiscal year 2005, FAA
decommissioned 177 navigational aids, claiming savings of $2.9 million.
According to one expert, FAA could additionally generate revenue from
these sites by leasing them for warehouses or cell phone towers. FAA also
expects to reduce costs by streamlining its operations. For example, it is
consolidating its administrative activities, currently decentralized
across its nine regions, into three regions, and anticipates an annual
savings of up to $460 million over the next 10 years. Our work analyzing
international air navigation service providers has shown that additional
cost savings may be possible by further consolidating ATC facilities such
as terminal radar approach control (TRACON) facilities and ATC centers.
According to one estimate of potential FAA savings, consolidating the
existing 21 air route traffic control centers into 6 centers could save
approximately $600 million per year. Finally, FAA expects to save costs
through outsourcing. For example, it outsourced its automated flight
service stations to a private contractor and expects to achieve savings of
$1.7 billion over 10 years. In addition, it expects savings of $0.5
billion from 400 staffing reductions that occurred between the time the
outsourcing began and the time the new contract was actually implemented.
The agency expects to receive $66 million-the first installment of these
cost savings-in fiscal year 2007.
Until FAA has completed its estimates of both NGATS costs and the cost
savings it will be able to achieve between now and 2025, it will not be
able to determine how far these cost savings will go toward financing
NGATS. Nonetheless, one analyst has preliminarily estimated that FAA's
expected savings through infrastructure and operational efficiencies will
fall far short of the amount needed to finance NGATS.19 While more
information is needed to estimate the amount of any shortfall with greater
confidence, these preliminary and incomplete estimates signal the extent
of the resource challenge.
19Aviation Management Associates, Inc., The "No New Money" Scenario for
the Next Generation Air Transportation System, (Alexandria, VA: Oct. 1,
2005).
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. We would be pleased to answer
any questions that you and Members of the Subcommittee may have.
Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
For further information on this testimony, please contact Gerald
Dillingham at (202) 512-2834 or [email protected]. Individuals making
key contributions to this statement include Kevin Egan, Elizabeth
Eisenstadt, David Hooper, Heather Krause, Elizabeth Marchak, Edmond
Menoche, Faye Morrison, Taylor Reeves, and Richard Scott.
(540128)
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Highlights of GAO-06-915T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Aviation, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S. Senate
July 25, 2006
NEXT GENERATION AIR TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM
Preliminary Analysis of Progress and Challenges Associated with the
Transformation of the National Airspace System
The health of our nation's air transportation system is critical to our
citizens and economy. However, the current approach to managing air
transportation is becoming increasingly inefficient and operationally
obsolete. In 2003, Congress created the Joint Planning and Development
Office (JPDO) to plan for and coordinate, with federal and nonfederal
stakeholders, a transformation from the current air traffic control (ATC)
system to the "next generation air transportation system" (NGATS).
Housed within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), JPDO has seven
partner agencies that make up JPDO's senior policy committee: the
Departments of Transportation, Commerce, Defense, and Homeland Security;
FAA; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); and the
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. This testimony, which
provides preliminary results from GAO's ongoing work on JPDO, provides
information on (1) the status of JPDO's efforts to plan for NGATS, (2) the
key challenges facing JPDO as it moves forward with its planning efforts,
and (3) the key challenges facing FAA as it implements the transformation
while continuing its current operations. The statement is based on GAO's
analysis of JPDO documents, interviews, and the views of a panel of
experts, as well as on past GAO work.
JPDO has developed a framework for planning and coordination with its
federal partner agencies and nonfederal stakeholders that is consistent
with the requirements of its authorizing legislation-Vision 100-and with
several practices that our previous work has shown can facilitate federal
interagency collaboration and the development of an enterprise
architecture (i.e., system blueprint). JPDO's framework includes an
integrated plan that provides a vision for NGATS, an organizational
structure and processes for leveraging the resources and expertise of
federal and nonfederal stakeholders, and an enterprise architecture that
defines the specific requirements for NGATS.
As JPDO moves forward, it will face leadership, leveraging, and commitment
challenges. Currently, JPDO lacks a permanent director and a permanent
chairperson of its senior policy committee to provide the leadership
needed to overcome barriers to interagency coordination. In addition,
despite early successes, JPDO may have difficulty continuing to leverage
its partner agencies' resources and expertise for NGATS because these
agencies have missions and priorities in addition to NGATS and JPDO does
not yet have signed, long-term agreements with the partner agencies on
their respective roles and responsibilities. Finally, JPDO faces the
challenge of convincing nonfederal stakeholders that the government is
fully committed to implementing NGATS, given that, in some instances, it
has discontinued work on new technologies for the national airspace
system.
FAA faces challenges in institutionalizing recent improvements in its
management and acquisition processes, as well as in obtaining the
expertise and resources necessary to implement NGATS. First,
institutionalizing FAA's process improvements is critical to successfully
implementing NGATS. Second, FAA may lack the expertise needed to manage
the NGATS effort. GAO has identified two potential approaches for FAA to
supplement its capabilities that FAA is considering. Third, achieving cost
savings is critical to funding the implementation of NGATS.
Air Traffic Management
*** End of document. ***