Next Generation Air Transportation System: Challenges with Partner Agency and FAA Coordination Continue, and Efforts to Integrate Near-, Mid-, and Long-term Activities Are Ongoing
Released: 2010-04-21T00:00:00

Letter

FAA Has Established Several Mechanisms to Facilitate Coordination on NextGen Activities among Partner Agencies, but Several Challenges Exist

Several Mechanisms Are in Place to Facilitate Coordination

Several mechanisms to facilitate coordination among FAA and partner agencies – including interagency committees, advisory boards, and working groups – are in place. First, the Senior Policy Committee, as the interagency governing body for NextGen, is meant to facilitate coordination and planning on NextGen across federal agencies. Chaired by the Secretary of Transportation, the Senior Policy Committee includes senior representatives from the NextGen partner agencies. Among its key activities, this committee works to provide policy guidance, resolve major policy issues, and identify and align resource needs. FAA and other partner agency officials indicated that the Senior Policy Committee has met infrequently. The Senior Policy Committee held their first full committee meeting under the new Administration in September 2009. According to the JPDO Director, JPDO is working closely with the Senior Policy Committee to establish a process for the committee to operate more effectively by providing it with the ability to review interagency dependencies such as FAA’s reliance on NASA research, develop a NextGen road map, and establish a set of high-level milestones—which it currently does not have—as well as conduct oversight of NextGen progress.

In addition to the Senior Policy Committee, several other interagency coordination mechanisms are in place to facilitate coordination among FAA and partner agencies, many of which are within JPDO. These include the JPDO Board and the JPDO Division Directors Group, each of which is composed of representatives from other federal agencies and FAA. The JPDO Board functions as an adjunct to the Senior Policy Committee and includes representatives from each of the partner agencies. Representatives on the JPDO Board work on actionable outcomes related to NextGen. The Division Directors are responsible for the planning and managing of NextGen. JPDO also has organized nine working groups composed of representatives from federal agencies and industry stakeholders to specialize in developing NextGen’s key capabilities, along with recommendations and action plans to be integrated into NextGen planning. Continued industry participation in JPDO Working Groups – which is provided pro-bono – is a challenge given the current business climate and companies’ participation in numerous aviation forums.

FAA and NASA also participate on four JPDO research transition teams that have been established to ensure that research and development needed for NextGen implementation is identified, conducted, and effectively transitioned to the implementing agency. In previous work, we discussed the formation of these teams, but as they had just been established, noted that their potential effectiveness was unclear. In that work we also identified key challenges in coordinating research, including gaps in funding for needed research and prioritization of research needs. According to the former Director of JPDO and NASA officials, the teams have been useful vehicles for identifying research needs and potential gaps; however, some teams are further along in terms of their involvement among the agencies and their deliverables than others. Although other agencies do not currently participate on these research transition teams, NASA agency officials reported that the structure could provide a model for future coordination across agencies.

Other arenas where interagency coordination can take place also exist. For example, the NextGen Management Board, which will be chaired by FAA’s newly appointed Deputy Administrator and has representatives from all key FAA lines of business, addresses interagency collaboration on key issues such as maintaining the integrity of information shared through NextGen systems. A liaison from DOD sits on the NextGen Management Board.

Several Challenges Impede Cross-Agency Coordination

Our past work identified several leadership and organizational challenges in ensuring coordination across partner agencies. First, we have reported that while JPDO has been in place for several years, the office has experienced a high leadership turnover rate. In 2010, a new JPDO Director was appointed, the office’s fourth Director in its 7 years of existence. The lack of stable leadership has made it a challenge for JPDO to move forward on many goals and objectives. Second, in March of 2009, we reported that changes to JPDO’s organizational position placing it within ATO could be an impediment to partner agency coordination, as it created ambiguity about JPDO’s role and it lowered JPDO’s status in the eyes of stakeholders. Moreover, the creation of a staff to support the Senior Policy Committee resulting from a November 2008 Executive Order caused further confusion regarding roles and responsibilities relative to federal partner agencies. Third, with the ATO focused on implementing capabilities through the midterm, JPDO’s role was shifted to a focus on the long term beyond 2018. According to stakeholders and partner agency officials we interviewed for this work, given JPDO’s long-term focus, it has largely not been involved in ATO’s current near- and midterm activities, despite being placed organizationally within ATO. As a result, participation by the partner agencies in those activities is also limited. Agency officials stated that it is important for JPDO to be involved in near- and midterm activities as well as long-term planning to ensure that effective interagency coordination on NextGen is in place.

Recent changes in the leadership and organizational position of JPDO are likely to change the nature of the relationship among JPDO, FAA, and its partner agencies and hold promise for increased coordination. JPDO has been elevated from its previous position within ATO and is now situated within FAA and outside of ATO, as illustrated in figure 1.

The JPDO Director now reports directly to the Deputy FAA Administrator—who serves as the head of the NextGen Management Board—as well as serving as the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Transportation. JPDO is also more closely aligned and is in a position to have a more active role with the Senior Policy Committee. This new structure removes the reporting relationship between JPDO and the Chief Operating Officer of ATO, and gives JPDO more visibility within the organization and with federal partners and other stakeholders. With these organizational moves, JPDO is expected to become a better conduit for monitoring cross-agency budgets and facilitating cross-agency collaborations and long-term research planning. Moreover, many of the key mechanisms for agency coordination, such as research transition teams, are within JPDO, and are likely to be affected by the move. According to the new Director of JPDO, a key step in improving the coordination with partner agencies will be to determine what value they see in the work produced by JPDO. As these changes have just recently occurred, it remains to be seen if the changes will result in better coordination across the partner agencies.

In addition to these leadership and structural issues, stakeholders and representatives of the partner agencies identified other broad challenges that affect the extent to which some partner agencies have coordinated with others. These challenges include (1) limited funding and staffing to dedicate to NextGen activities, (2) competing mission priorities, and (3) undefined near-term roles and responsibilities of some partner agencies.

Limited funding and staffing to dedicate to NextGen activities.

Industry stakeholders and agency officials we spoke to stated that some partner agencies’ ability to coordinate with other agencies was affected by the levels of funding and staff that could be dedicated to NextGen activities. Officials at some partner agencies we spoke with stated that partner agencies allocated little or no budgetary funding specifically for NextGen activities and because of competing priorities for funds, they were limited in the resources they could dedicate to NextGen planning and coordination efforts. With respect to future investments, according to JPDO and DOT data, in fiscal year 2011, among NextGen partner agencies, three—FAA, NASA, and the Department of Commerce’s NOAA—requested some funding for NextGen activities. DOD and DHS did not request funding in their budgets specifically for NextGen activities. OSTP is working with the Office of Management and Budget to improve agency alignment and identification of NextGen-related budgets.

Differences in agency mission. Differences among agencies’ mission priorities, particularly DHS’s and DOD’s, also pose a challenge to coordination efforts. DHS’s diverse set of mission priorities, ranging from aviation security to border protection, affects its level of involvement in NextGen activities. For example, events such as the 2009 Christmas Day terrorism attempt can shift DHS priorities quickly and move the agency away from focusing on issues such as NextGen, which are not as critical at that particular time. Agency officials also stated that although different departments within DHS are involved in related NextGen activities, such as security issues, the fact that NextGen implementation is not a formalized mission in DHS can affect DHS’s level of participation in NextGen activities. Industry stakeholders told us that there are potential consequences if DHS is not involved in long-term NextGen planning, including potentially marginalizing DHS’s NextGen areas, such as aviation security. Industry stakeholders reported that FAA could more effectively engage partner agencies in long-term planning by aligning implementation activities to agency mission priorities and by obtaining agency buy-in for actions required to transform the national airspace system.

Undefined near-term roles and responsibilities of partner agencies. Some stakeholders and agency officials told us that FAA could do more to clearly define each partner agency’s role in key planning documents that guide NextGen implementation efforts, particularly in the near term. Our work has shown that coordinating agencies should work together to define and agree on their respective roles and responsibilities, including how the coordination effort will be led. We reported in 2008 that a key intended purpose of these planning documents, according to JPDO officials, is to provide the means for coordinating among the partner agencies and to identify each agency’s role in implementing NextGen capabilities, but that stakeholders said that the planning documents did not provide guidance for their organizational decision making. Some stakeholders and agency officials we spoke to more recently told us that the NextGen Implementation Plan, which identifies near- and midterm implementation efforts, still does not specify how partner agencies will be involved or what outcomes are required from them. Another industry stakeholder explained that if partner agencies do not see their roles reflected in key planning documents, projects which depend on inter- agency coordination will not be fully integrated across all partner agencies. One area in particular where coordination is important is related to how FAA, DOD, and DHS information networks will share information in the future to allow for a shared awareness of the national airspace. Information sharing across agencies is necessary for such things as advanced capabilities related to optimizing the use of certain airspace by the diverse set of users under the auspices of these agencies (e.g. military aircraft, commercial aircraft, general aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, etc.). Protocols and requirements for inter-agency information sharing have yet to be determined. Limited agency participation in near-term coordination efforts, including establishing protocols on information sharing across agencies, could hamper coordination over the long term.

Both the House and Senate FAA reauthorization bills include provisions for improving coordination among partner agencies that could address, in part, some of the challenges identified by industry stakeholders and agency officials. Some of the related provisions in the bills call for, among other things, revised memorandums of understanding with partner agencies that describe the respective responsibilities of each agency, including budgetary commitments.

It Is Too Early to Determine Whether FAA Steps to Improve Coordination for NextGen among FAA Offices Will Be Effective

Stakeholders we spoke to cited challenges with coordinating the implementation of NextGen capabilities across FAA lines of business. With multiple FAA lines of business responsible for various NextGen activities, including offices within ATO and outside ATO, coordination and integration is vital since delays in actions required from several offices could prevent or delay full realization of NextGen benefits. Shifting from an organization and culture focused on system acquisition to one focused on integration and coordination will be an ongoing challenge for FAA.

Recent organizational changes may help address these issues, but it is too early to measure the success of these efforts. As previously discussed and as shown in figure 1, changes that move JPDO out of the ATO and create a direct reporting relationship to the FAA Deputy Administrator solidify the FAA Deputy Administrator as the key executive in charge of NextGen. The FAA Deputy Administrator has authority over the different lines of business that must work together to implement NextGen and, as chairman of the NextGen Management Board, has the authority to force timely resolution of emerging NextGen implementation issues. Both the House and Senate reauthorization bills include provisions to designate a single official in charge of NextGen. The House bill proposes designating the Director of JPDO as the Associate Administrator for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, while the Senate bill proposes creating a Chief NextGen Officer who would oversee all NextGen programs and JPDO. Because the Deputy Administrator position has not yet been confirmed, it is too early to tell how effective these organizational relationships will be in addressing concerns from industry and the Congress regarding who is in charge of NextGen and whether that official has sufficient authority and accountability to ensure effective implementation.

Because these changes have just occurred, it is not yet clear whether they will be sufficient to address the problems cited by the Task Force. authority over activities across FAA, or that suitable oversight mechanisms exist in order to ensure timely implementation of all activities necessary for an operational improvement. As a result, these issues could slow the implementation of NextGen.

Integration of Near- and Midterm Implementation Plans with Long-term Plans Is Ongoing

FAA officials and several stakeholders we interviewed described FAA’s near- and midterm efforts as necessary stepping-stones to the long-term plans and vision for NextGen. Early success in implementing key NextGen capabilities desired by aircraft operators will help build confidence among operators that FAA can and will provide the operational improvements necessary for operators to realize benefits from their equipment investments.

From a planning perspective, integration of near- and midterm implementation plans with the long-term plans and vision for NextGen is currently an ongoing effort within the FAA. As previously mentioned, near- and midterm implementation is guided by the 2010 NextGen Implementation Plan, which feeds into FAA’s Enterprise Architecture for the national airspace system. Supporting the NextGen Implementation plan are two more detailed plans - Segment A, which defines detailed activities through 2015, to be completed later this quarter, which will then be followed by Segment B, which defines NextGen through 2018. These plans will identify in great detail the specific actions that must take place in order to implement the identified capabilities. The long-term vision and initial planning for NextGen took place within JPDO and resulted in the overall Concept of Operations, the NextGen Enterprise Architecture, and an accompanying Integrated Work Plan (IWP). The IWP sought to identify all of the envisioned NextGen capabilities through the long term and also lays out the enabling activities believed necessary to achieve those capabilities (e.g., necessary research and development, policy development, and so forth). Currently, according to a senior FAA official, the operational improvements identified in the 2010 NextGen Implementation Plan and FAA’s Enterprise Architecture have been aligned with the operational improvements identified in the NextGen Enterprise Architecture and the IWP. However, the enabling activities necessary to achieve those capabilities have yet to be fully aligned. Various ATO offices and JPDO are currently developing agreements that will set forth how the offices will work together to fully align all of the enabling activities across the various planning documents. The effort to align the rest of the enabling activities is expected to be completed in late fiscal year 2010, according to a senior FAA official.

Some stakeholders expressed concern that near- and midterm programs and capabilities are not connected well enough to the long-term vision and identified several key policy decisions that will affect the vision of the NextGen system and thus will determine whether programs, technologies, and capabilities implemented today will be the stepping-stones to future, more advanced capabilities. Three of these decisions that will have a major impact on the direction of near- and midterm implementation efforts as well as the long-term vision involve issues such as the scope and timing of installing necessary equipment on aircraft, expediting environmental reviews, and the extent to which additional airport capacity will be needed.

Equipping aircraft. FAA has yet to develop a strategy for the timing, cost, and scope of equipping the nation’s aircraft fleet. In particular, FAA must focus on delivering near-term operational benefits by completing activities, such as procedure development, airspace redesign, performance standard development, and separation standard reduction, that lay the foundation for NextGen. Doing so will help provide incentives for users, especially commercial airlines, to invest in equipment for their aircraft. Two key decisions that must be considered are whether all aircraft need to be equipped at all locations and when equipping with various technologies should occur. FAA must align aircraft equipping rules and incentives in a way that minimizes the costs and maximizes the overall benefits of NextGen. We have previously reported that, in some cases, the federal government may deem financial or other incentives desirable to speed the deployment of new equipment and that appropriate incentives will depend on the technology and the potential for an adequate and timely return on public and private investment.

Environmental approach. FAA has yet to make decisions regarding how environmental reviews can be expedited and what strategies might be needed to meet national environmental targets. We previously reported that differing levels of review must be completed depending on the extent FAA deems its actions to have significant environmental impact, and that the more extensive the analysis required, the longer the process can take, which can thus affect implementation of NextGen capabilities. A key question in this regard is how to appropriately and expeditiously review actions that may increase noise in some areas but also reduce emissions and reduce noise levels overall. Further, a balance will need to be struck between needs for increased capacity, which means more aircraft will be flying and releasing emissions, and potential environmental targets in the future. A key issue here is that although NextGen will increase the efficiency per flight (fuel burn, distance traveled, and emissions), because there are expected to be more total flights, greenhouse gas emissions in total may rise.

Airport capacity. A national policy regarding airport capacity in key metropolitan areas will need to be determined. Even with current planned airport expansion, FAA expects capacity shortfalls in many of the nation’s busiest airports. NextGen alone is not likely to sufficiently expand the safety and capacity of the national airspace system. Decisions regarding using existing capacity more efficiently include certifying and approving standards for the use of closely spaced parallel runways—which will be a major driver of the amount of land needed to expand airport capacity and will determine capacity in some metropolitan areas—and developing policies that address situations when demand exceeds capacity at airports or in specific airspace (e.g., pricing, administrative rules, service priorities, and so forth). Furthermore, planning infrastructure projects to increase capacity, such as building additional runways, can take as long as a decade or more, and will require substantial planning and safety and cost analyses.

JPDO and MITRE are currently conducting modeling work to examine benefits, costs, and risks associated with alternative assumptions regarding various future scenarios. This work will provide important information to stakeholders and decision makers regarding the validation of the benefits of NextGen capabilities, as well as the extent to which further capacity in the system may be required, and is still in the preliminary stages.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased to answer any questions that you or members of the subcommittee may have at this time.

GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments

For further information on this testimony, please contact Gerald L. Dillingham, Ph.D., at (202) 512-2834 or dillinghamg@gao.gov. Individuals making key contributions to this testimony include Andrew Von Ah (Assistant Director), Kieran McCarthy, Richard Scott, Maria Mercado, Kevin Egan, Dominic Nadarski, Delwen Jones, Amy Abramowitz, and Bert Japikse.

Related GAO Products

Next Generation Air Transportation System: FAA Faces Challenges in Responding to Task Force Recommendations. GAO-10-188T. Washington, D.C.: October 28, 2009.

Responses to Questions for the Record: March 18, 2009, Hearing on ATC Modernization: Near-Term Achievable Goals. GAO-09-718R. Washington, D.C.: May 20, 2009.

Next Generation Air Transportation System: Status of Transformation and Issues Associated with Midterm Implementation of Capabilities. GAO-09-479T. Washington D.C.: March 18, 2009.

Responses to Questions for the Record: February 11, 2009, Hearing on the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2009. GAO-09-467R. Washington, D.C.: March 10, 2009.

Next Generation Air Transportation System: Status of Systems Acquisition and the Transition to the Next Generation Air Transportation System. GAO-08-1078. Washington, D.C.: September 11, 2008.

Next Generation Air Transportation System: Status of Key Issues Associated with the Transition to NextGen. GAO-08-1154T. Washington, D.C.: September 11, 2008.

Joint Planning and Development Office: Progress and Key Issues in Planning the Transition to the Next Generation Air Transportation System. GAO-07-693T. Washington, D.C.: March 2007.

Next Generation Air Transportation System: Progress and Challenges Associated with the Transformation of the National Airspace System. GAO-07-25. Washington, D.C.: November 13, 2006.

Results Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance and Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies. GAO-06-15. Washington, D.C.: October 21, 2005.

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