Federal Aviation

Administration

Historical Noise 

Exposure Trends 

and Goals Analysis 

for Noise

Presented by: Fabio Grandi (AEE-100)

Chris Dorbian (AEE-400)

Presented to: REDAC E&E 

Subcommittee

Date: August 30, 2016
Federal Aviation

Administration

IMPROVE

• Adapt roadmaps

• Fill research pipeline

Technology Alternative Fuels

Operations Policy

IMPLEMENT

ADVANCE SCIENCE AND 

INTEGRATED MODELING

Aviation Environmental 

Tool Suite

Source 

characterization

Health and welfare 

impacts

Propagation and 

dispersion

EVALUATE

• Progress toward goals

• Mitigation opportunities

PLAN

• Environment and energy policy statement 1

• U.S. climate action plan 2

• Research roadmaps 3

GOALS

• Noise

• Air Quality

• Climate

• Energy

FAA VISION

Reach the next level of safety, 

efficiency, environmental 

responsibility and global 

leadership

Environmental & Energy Strategy

Notes:

1. Aviation E&E Policy Statement (Federal Register 77-141, 2012): http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/apl/ 

environ_policy_guidance/policy/media/FAA_EE_Policy_Statement.pdf

2. U.S. Aviation GHG Emissions Reduction Plan: http://www.icao.int/environmentalprotection/Pages/ClimateChange_ActionPlan.aspx

3. Environment and Energy Website: http://www.faa.gov/go/environment

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Federal Aviation

Administration

Part I: Historical Noise Exposure 

• Overall objective

– Assess the aviation system progress towards the goal of reducing 

the U.S. population exposed to significant aircraft noise around 

airports to less than 300,000 persons by 2018.

• Annual noise inventory analysis

– Estimate the number of people exposed to aircraft noise by 

collecting the best fleet and operations information available for the 

preceding year’s for input to the Aviation Environmental Design 

Tool (AEDT) model

– Use the information generated over multiple years to visualize 

progress towards the goal in the form of a population noise 

exposure trend line

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Federal Aviation

Administration

Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT)

Methodology

4

Noise Contour 

Generation and 

Population 

Counting

Fleet and Operations Input Processing

20xx Area and 

Population Exposure 

by Airport

Fleet and Trajectories 

Data (ETMS, ETFMS, 

and OAG)

Fleet Registration 

Data

Movements 

Construction 

Module (MCM) 

Legend

Process

Data

Airline Service 

Quality Performance 

(ASQP)

Airports Flight 

Tracks 

Utilization 

Computation 

AEDT Airport 

Database AEDT Fleet Database

20xx Movements 

database

Aircraft 

Performance 

Modeling

US Historic 

Area and Population 

Exposure by Airport

US Exposure Trend

2010 US Census 

with 20xx Updates
Federal Aviation

Administration

Fleet and Operations Processing

• Fleet and operations data based on best available information

– Enhanced Traffic Management System (ETMS - Volpe feed)

• Fleet assignment based on tiered best available information

1. Specific Airframe and engine combination based on ASQP reported tail 

number and Registration database

2. Airline Specific fleet based on mix available in the Registration database

3. Regional fleet based on Registration database

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• Airports Flight Tracks Utilization 

Processing

– Provides updated information on the 

utilization of ground tracks at airport 

where detailed airport modeling 

information is available
Federal Aviation

Administration

Modeling Details

Airport data

• 121 Primary airports (Tier 1)

– Have detailed ground tracks information 

and utilization information (Decks)

– Ground tracks utilization updated using 

year specific radar trajectory data

• 597 Secondary airports (Tier 2)

– Rely on straight-in and straight-out 

ground tracks

– Assume an even distribution of 

operations across runways

– Only responsible for 3% of the population 

exposure at 65dB DNL

• Airport data updates

– The ground tracks for the top 20 Tier 1 

airports were updated last year

– The top 20 Tier 2 airports where 

upgraded to Tier 1 level this year

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Federal Aviation

Administration

Exposure Trend Line Update

• Current Trend line spans 10 years 

and 3 models

– US MAGENTA – Based on an INM core

– NEAT – Based on an AEDT core

– AEDT 2b – Final released implementation

• Having results based on multiple 

models and vintages of data 

causes basic inconsistencies 

between results

• AEDT 2b model and data are 

expected to remain stable

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• Already initiated a project to rerun the entire time series

– Priority will be give to the years: 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2012

– The remaining years (2006, 2008, 2011, and 2013) will be rerun immediately after

– 2014 and 2015 have already been computed using AEDT 2b Population Exposure

Year
Federal Aviation

Administration

High Fidelity Flight Track Modeling

• Developing process for Annual Inventory Generation

• Model each flight track as-flown in radar data (e.g., PDARS, NOP, 

SWIM, etc.) using AEDT’s sensor path method

– Data reduction, smoothing, and refinement performed external to AEDT 

– APM used to model aircraft operational state along radar trajectory

– Direct injection into AEDT (>25 million annual ops) for processing

– Potential for modeling individual days of flight for more detailed analyses

• Linkages with NextGen cost/benefit analysis efforts

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— APM Flight

• Constraints
Federal Aviation

Administration

Part II: Goals Analysis

• Overall objective

– Explore how expected advancements in airframe and 

engine technology, alternative fuels, and operational 

improvements will propel the U.S. aviation sector towards 

FAA E&E goals notwithstanding expected growth in 

operations

• Noise Goal Analysis

– Generate noise data consistent with existing evaluations 

of projected aircraft operations and fuel burn levels (i.e., 

‘Goals’ runs featured in 2015 US Climate Action Plan)

– Inform future (post 2018) noise goal planning

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Federal Aviation

Administration

Methodology

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Post-Process

1. Draw 

contours 

2. Compute 

population 

exposure

Noise-Equivalent 

Operations Adjustment

Core Environmental Modeling Process

Events Generation

Seat Class Forecast 

Stage #1

Future noise 

performance of 

modeled terminalarea operations

AEDT 2b

2012 Flight 

Activity 

Advanced technology 

assumptions

Seat Class Forecast 

Stage #2: Filtering 

and Scaling

Raw Forecast by 

Seat Class

Growth and 

Retirement 

Process 

Legend

Final Forecast by 

Seat Class

Process

Data

1. Assign 

equipment type

2. Assign vertical 

profile

3. Assign ground 

track distribution

4. Distill unique 

events

Unique Events
Federal Aviation

Administration

Experimental Setup

• Year of base flight activity: 2012

• Forecast year, source: 2030, FAA TAF-M

• Population densities: 2010 Census (fixed)

• Decks: Consistent with CY14 Annual Inventory run

• Environmental engine and assumptions: AEDT 2B using traditional 

Annual Inventory settings

• Retirement and replacement

– CAEP/9 retirement curves are used throughout

– The growth and replacement fleet comprises three categories of technology

• Tier 1 (AEDT-native): 2012-2013 technology

• Tier 2 (operations-adjustment-based with actual certification data): A350

• Tier 3 (operations-adjustment-based with projected certification data) 

– 2016+ technology

– See slides subtitled ‘Methods and data: technology assumptions'

• 48 airports – accounting for over 95% of 2012 nationwide 65 dB DNL 

population exposure – were chosen from the 600+ airports in the 

National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) with at least one 

average daily jet departure

• Metrics: 55, 60, and 65 decibel (dB) day-night average sound levels

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Federal Aviation

Administration

Methods and Data: 

Technology Assumptions

• Adapted from PARTNER Project 36: EDS Assessment 

of CLEEN Technologies

• CLEEN-funded technologies as well as other public 

domain and proprietary industry technologies 

potentially available in the CLEEN timeframe, including 

NASA N+1 and N+2 technologies

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Scenario Description

Evolutionary 

(Baseline)

‘Normal’ technology evolution. Conservative inclusion of 

CLEEN technologies in N+1.

Aggressive Represents higher rate of technology development. 

Includes all CLEEN Techs in N+1
Federal Aviation

Administration

Fleet Evolution

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0

2,000,000

4,000,000

6,000,000

8,000,000

10,000,000

12,000,000

14,000,000

2012 2020 2025 2030

Jet Operations

Year

UNKNOWN

STAGE 5 G/R

STAGE 5 2012 Fleet

STAGE 3 & 4 G/R

STAGE 3 & 4 2012 Fleet
Federal Aviation

Administration

Population Exposure

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• 20 and 26% decrease in population exposure between 2012 and 2030 for 65 dB contour for 

baseline and aggressive technology scenarios, respectively. 

• 8.5% difference between Baseline and Aggressive Technology in 2030.

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 2026 2028 2030

65 dB DNL Population Exposure 

(Normalized)

Year

Baseline

Aggressive Technology

Note that only 2012 and 2030 were computed
Federal Aviation

Administration

Fleet-Weighted Population Exposure

• Combines noise energy with population 

exposure to generate distribution of systemwide population exposure with respect to 

aircraft class

• Example calculation for Regional Jet (RJ):

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Federal Aviation

Administration

16%

44%

16%

16%

7%

2030 Evolutionary Fleet-Weighted Pop Exposure

80% of 2012 Exposure (20% reduction)

13%

53%

21%

5%

7%

2012 Fleet-Weighted Pop Exposure

RJ

SA

STA

LTA

VLA

18%

44%

14%

16%

7%

2030 Aggressive Fleet-Weighted Pop Exposure

74% of 2012 Exposure (26% reduction)

Fleet Weighted

Population Exposure

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Population exposure to DNL 65

Circle area is proportional to population exposure
Federal Aviation

Administration

Summary

• AEDT 2b used to generate Annual Noise 

Inventory as well as forward-looking Noise 

Goals Analysis

• Inventory provides basis for Goals Analysis

• Provide insight on system performance against 

current and future goals

• Tool / data improvements continually being 

made to enhance fidelity

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