The terminal area is the area around an airport extending from the airfield or surface to about 10,000 feet vertically and out to about 40 miles in any direction. The terminal area includes airport surface areas such as runways, taxiways, and ramps, as well as the airspace covered by air traffic control towers—typically within 5 miles of a towered airport—and by terminal radar approach control (TRACON) facilities, which typically handle air traffic to within about 40 miles of an airport (see fig. 1). Terminal area safety incidents can occur on the surface at airports or in the airspace around them. Surface incidents may threaten the safety of aircraft, passengers, and airport workers, among others. Terminal area safety incidents that happen on runways and taxiways include incursions and excursions. Runway incursions typically involve the incorrect presence of an aircraft, vehicle, or person on a runway, and runway excursions generally occur when an aircraft veers off or overruns a runway (see fig. 2). Ramp incidents can involve aircraft or airport vehicles, such as baggage carts or ground handling vehicles, as well as airline and airport employees and others. Airborne safety incidents in the terminal area often involve a loss of the minimum required distance between aircraft—as airplanes fly too close to each other—or as individual aircraft fly too close to terrain or obstructions. These incidents are called “losses of separation,” because there is a violation of FAA separation standards that ensure established distances are maintained between aircraft or other obstacles while under the con of air traffic controllers. Generally, air traffic controllers must maintain either vertical or horizontal separation between aircraft (see fig. 3), and losses of separation occur when both of these measures are violated, based on phase of flight and size of the aircraft. Safety in the terminal area is a shared responsibility among FAA, airlines, pilots, and airports. FAA air traffic controllers oversee activity on runways and taxiways, and airlines and airports provide primary safety oversight in ramp areas. Several FAA offices have a role in terminal area safety including:  The Office of Runway Safety (Runway Safety) within the Air Traffic Organization (ATO) Safety Office was established in 1999 and le and coordinates the agency’s runway safety efforts. Its primary mission is to improve runway safety by decreasing the number a severity of runway incursions. Runway Safety is responsible for nd developing a national runway safety plan and performance measures for runway safety and evaluating the effectiveness of runway safety activities. The office currently has an acting director. Other FAA offices, including the Office of Aviation Safety, the Office of Airports, other components of ATO, and regional offices sup port Runway Safety’s work to identify hazards and analyze risk.  ATO manages air tr affic control and develops and maintains runway safety technology.  The Office of Aviation Safety and Flight Standards Service (Flight Standards) within it conduct safety inspections of airlines, audit air traffic safety issues, and administer a program to obtain information about safety incidents involving pilots.  The Office of Airports oversees airport-related safety, including airpo infrastructure. This includes issuing airport operating certificates to commercial service airports, establishing airport design and safety standards, and inspecting certificated airports. The Office of Airports also provides Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grants to airports to help support safety improvements. Airlines and airports typically oversee the safety of operations in ra areas. Ramp areas are typically small, congested areas in which departing and arriving aircraft are serviced by ramp workers, who include baggage, catering, and fueling personnel. These areas can be dange for ground workers and passengers. As noted in our 2007 report on runway and ramp safety, FAA’s oversight of ramp areas is generally provided indirectly through its certification of airlines and airports. Bot NTSB and OSHA investigate accidents in the ramp area. Thus, NTSB investigates ramp accidents—and other accidents involving aircraft—that occur from the time any person boards an aircraft with the intention t o fly until the time the last person disembarks the aircraft, if the accident h results in serious or fatal injury or substantial aircraft damage. OSHA can conduct an inspection in response to a fatality, injuries, or a complaint, unless it is preempted by an exercise of statutory authority by FAA. FAA collects and analyzes information about various safety incidents in the terminal area in order to track incidents, identify their causes, and assign severity levels. Currently data are collected at towered airports for runway incursions, some other surface incidents, and for airborne incidents. By contrast, no complete data are collected for incidents in ramp areas. FAA categorizes incidents according to the actions or inactions of air traffic controllers, pilots, or others, such as pedestrians or vehicle operators. Table 1 provides hypothetical examples of each type of incident. Depending on the type of incident identified—air traffic control surface event, operational error or deviation, pilot deviation, or pedestrian/vehicle deviation—different offices within FAA are responsible for investigating individual incidents. FAA is in the process of implementing a data-driven, risk-based approach to safety oversight that FAA expects will help it continuously improve safety by identifying hazards, assessing and mitigating risk, and measuring performance. For decades, the aviation industry and FAA have used data reactively to identify the causes of aviation accidents and incidents and take actions to prevent their recurrence. Using a safety management system approach, the agency plans to use aviation safety data to identify conditions that could lead to incidents, allowing it to address risks proactively. FAA’s current approach for analyzing information about safety in the terminal area includes separate approaches for surface and airborne incidents.  Surface incidents. For runway incursions, Runway Safety collects information from the Administrator’s Daily Bulletin and the Air Traffic Quality Assurance database (ATQA)—a mandatory reporting system with incident information recorded by FAA air traffic controller supervisors, support specialists, and managers—and other sources such as incident investigations. Runway Safety determines how an event will be categorized (e.g., air traffic control, pilot, or vehicle/pedestrian deviation, etc. ), and the runway incursion severity classification team, which consists of representatives from the Office of Airports, Flight Standards, and ATO Terminal Services, determines the severity of the incursion.  Airborne incidents. For terminal area incidents that occur in the air, the primary source of information is ATQA. FAA recently adopted a new process for analyzing these incident data and has taken steps to increase the amount and quality of information collected. FAA officials stated that, prior to this change, data were limited to the information collected in ATQA from FAA managers and supervisors, with limited input from individual controllers through controller statements gathered during incident investigations. We will discuss the new system in more detail in the following section. FAA has taken several steps since 2007 to further improve surface safety at airports, focusing most notably on efforts to reduce the number and severity of runway incursions—the agency’s key performance measures for this area. (See fig. 4.) As part of its 2007 Call to Action Plan, the agency implemented new safety approaches and developed milestones for the implementation of various mid- and long-term initiatives, such as conducting safety reviews of 20 airports where incursions were of greatest concern, upgrading airport markings at airports, and reviewing cockpit and air traffic procedures. Additionally, FAA’s 2009–2011 National Runway Safety Plan establishes priorities for each FAA office involved in reducing incursion risks and identifies performance targets for reducing the risk of runway incursions, including an overall goal to reduce total runway incursions by 10 percent from 1,009 in fiscal year 2008 to 908 incursions by the end of fiscal year 2013. In 2010, FAA issued an order that further strengthened the role of Runway Safety as the agency’s focus for addressing incursions and improving runway safety. FAA has also proposed new rules related to airport safety management systems that address ramp areas. Additionally, FAA established local and regional runway safety action teams that assess runway safety issues at particular airports, formulate runway safety action plans to address these concerns, and execute their runway safety programs. FAA also established the Runway Safety Council (Council) with aviation industry stakeholders to develop a systemic approach to improving runway safety. The Council’s Root Cause Analysis Team—comprised of representatives from FAA and airlines—investigates severe runway incursions to determine root causes in order to identify systemic risks. The Root Cause Analysis Team presents recommendations to the Council, which in turn, assigns accepted recommendations to FAA or the aviation industry, based on which is best able to address root causes and prevent further incursions. The Council is responsible for tracking recommendations and ensuring that they get implemented. FAA’s layered approach to addressing runway safety includes a range of actions, such as encouraging airport improvements, including improving runway safety areas; changes to airport layout and runway markings, signage, and lighting; providing training for pilots and air traffic controllers; mitigating wildlife hazards; and researching, testing, and deploying new technology. According to its 2009–2011 National Runway Safety Pla annual safety reports, FAA’s efforts to decrease the risk of surface incidents include: Improving runway safety areas. In order to reduce fatalities and injuries from runway excursions, the Office of Airports has provide between $200 and $300 million annually since 2000 through AIP grants to improve runway safety areas, which are unobstructed areas surrounding runways.  Outreach to general aviation pilots. Regional runway safety action team meetings, briefings, and clinics for general aviation pilots and flight instructors discuss the importance of runway safety and how to avoid incursions. FAA also provided training, printed materials, and electronic media such as DVDs explaining runway safety.  New terminology.