An aviation system is composed of airports that are publicly owned and open for public use within a defined geographic area—a region, a state, or multiple nearby states. For example, a metropolitan region may have an airport serving commercial airlines and several general aviation (GA) relievers or other GA airports that cater to nonairline traffic. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 244: Advancing the Practice of State Aviation System Planning is intended to serve as a c...

Developments in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) technology and the seemingly endless applications of this technology offer society a broad spectrum of enhancements and solutions to many problems. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 238: Airfield Design for Large Unmanned Aircraft Systems—A Guide provides a fundamental understanding of large UAS (L-UAS) and their typical supporting infrastructure needs, which will assist airport sponsors with determining potential enha...

Airports across the United States are owned and operated by a wide variety of governance structures, each with their own features and historical legacies. As the common refrain from airport professionals goes, if you’ve seen one airport, you’ve seen one airport. Similarly, if you’ve seen one airport’s governance structure, you’ve seen one airport’s governance structure. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 245: Guide to Evaluating Airport Governance Structures provides valu...

Airfield markings are critical visual cues and are vital for runways and taxiways. During airfield construction projects, it is often required to remove or obliterate the existing pavement markings and apply temporary markings. These methods can leave scarring that is visible on the airfield for years. Such traces of former markings can be mistaken for active airfield markings by pilots and ground personnel. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 247: Airfield Pavement Markin...

Despite dedicated efforts involving changes in technologies and procedures, the number of annual runway incursions in the United States has shown little to no improvement. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 246: Airside Operations Safety: Understanding the Effects of Human Factors provides a review of the current state of human factors research and the related resources that are available to U.S. airport operations personnel. Supplemental to the report are an Executive Su...

As technology continues to evolve, airports are seeking opportunities to create a touchless experience along the passenger journey. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need to eliminate many common touchpoints, which are potential points of disease transmission. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 241: Toward a Touchless Airport Journey presents solutions from emerging and existing technologies to nontechnological solutions. For each solution, the current level of re...

Periodically, airports want to redesign their workforce and organizational structure. They are seeking to be responsive to their current and emerging business needs, which can change over time. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 240: Primer for Airport Organizational Redesign provides guidelines for airport leaders on strategies and steps as they navigate the process of reorganizing their structure.

Airports use Noise and Operations Monitoring Systems (NOMSs) to collect, manage, analyze, and communicate data such as flight tracks and procedures, aircraft identification, noise measurements, noise abatement program performance, and weather. NOMSs are also used to respond to community noise complaints and provide stakeholders with information about aircraft activity and noise, thus fostering trust and transparency. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 237: Primer and Fram...

Design innovation for electrically powered and hybrid-electric aircraft is accelerating rapidly. While there are many potential benefits of electric aircraft and hydrogen technologies, not all air service can be replaced by electrically powered aircraft in the near term. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 236: Preparing Your Airport for Electric Aircraft and Hydrogen Technologies offers an introduction to the emerging electric aircraft industry, gives estimates of potenti...

Airport user surveys have traditionally been used to obtain information for facility planning. More recently, however, surveys are being used to measure satisfaction as a way to identify actions that could improve the customer experience and increase non-aeronautical revenues, particularly those from passenger terminal concessions. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 235: Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research provides airport managers a...