Federal Aviation

Administration

REDAC / NAS Ops 

Matt Royston, ANG-C5

March 10, 2016

Runway Incursion Reduction 

Program (RIRP) 

Review of FY 2018 

Proposed Portfolio
Federal Aviation RIRP Administration

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Runway Incursion Reduction Program 

(RIRP)

Benefits to the FAA:

• FAA Strategic Priority 1 – Make Aviation Safer and Smarter

• FAA Performance Metric 4 – Reduce Category A & B (most serious) 

runway incursions to a rate of no more than 0.395 per million operation 

and maintain or improve through FY 2018

• RIRP is the FAA Response to NTSB Recommendation A-00-66:

“Require, at all airports with scheduled passenger service, a ground 

movement safety system that will prevent runway incursions; the system 

should provide a direct warning capability to flight crews. In addition, 

demonstrate through computer simulations or other means that the system 

will, in fact, prevent incursions.”
Federal Aviation RIRP Administration

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RIRP Overview Capabilities

People:

• Program Managers: Matt Royston, Ben Marple

• Support Engineers: Amit Choudhri, Peter Nguyen

Laboratories:

• MIT/LL:

− Safety Logic and Technology Development

− Engineering and Human Factors

• Volpe:

− Research / Data Mining

− Human Factors
Federal Aviation RIRP Administration

Anticipated Research in FY16 and FY17

Planned Research Activities

• Runway Incursion Prevention Shortfall Analysis (RIPSA) Candidate 

Airports Site Surveys – FY16

• Small Airport Surveillance Sensor (SASS) demonstrations – FY16

• Evaluation of new technologies for inclusion within the RIRP Portfolio to 

address the outcome of the shortfall analysis/ 2015 FAA Runway Safety 

Call to Action – FY16 / FY17

Expected research Products

• RIPSA Report – FY16

• System Requirements and preliminary Cost Estimates for “Rightsite-Right-size” technologies at candidate airports – FY16

• Evaluation of SASS performance at KBED – FY16

• Business Case Analysis Report for RIPSA technologies – FY17

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Federal Aviation RIRP Administration

Emerging FY18 Focal Areas

• Operational Evaluation of localized surveillance 

and annunciation technologies at RIPSA Candidate 

Airports following the right-site, right-size model

• Surface Taxi Conformance and Monitoring for RI 

prevention

• Potential integration of SASS system with runway 

safety logic and annunciators

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Federal Aviation RIRP Administration

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Runway Safety Assessment (RSA)

FY 14/15 Accomplishment / Issues

Research Requirement Outputs/Outcomes

Out Year Funding Requirements

FY14 FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18

$ M $ M $ 2.5M $ 2.5M $ 3.5M

• New: Develop Program Requirements for potential 

technologies at candidate airports as identified in the 

RIPSA report.

• Sponsor: Runway Safety Group (AJI-14) 

POC: James Fee, Manager, Runway Safety, AJI-141 

Products:

• System Requirements and 

Cost/Benefit Documents for feasible 

technologies.

• Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) 

document for feasible technologies. 

• Completed evaluation of the responses received for the 

Market Survey for 7 candidate technologies.

• Completed Runway Incursion Prevention Shortfall Analysis 

(RIPSA) report documenting RI causal factors and 

identifying small-medium airports that need RI prevention 

technologies.
Federal Aviation RIRP Administration

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Small Airport Surveillance Sensor (SASS)

FY 14/15 Accomplishment / Issues

Research Requirement Outputs/Outcomes

Out Year Funding Requirements

FY14 FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18

$ M $ M $ 1.5M $ 2.5M $ 1.5M

• New: Develop Low Cost Surface Surveillance Sensor 

• Sponsor: Runway Safety Group (AJI-14) 

POC: James Fee, Manager, Runway Safety, AJI-141 

Products:

• SASS system

• Built and tested SASS Master and Slave mobile units

• Developed and tested real-time signal processing software

• Conducted preliminary field tests at Handsome Field (BED)

• Evaluated the performance of the SASS system against 

DGPS truth data