FAA Faces Challenges on NextGen

A recent report to the Congress by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Inspector General says the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) "faces challenges" in developing its Next Generation (NextGen) air traffic control system. "FAA is at a crossroads with NAS modernization efforts and will...

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A recent report to the Congress by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Inspector General says the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) "faces challenges" in developing its Next Generation (NextGen) air traffic control system.

"FAA is at a crossroads with NAS modernization efforts and will be challenged to keep ongoing projects on track, maintain aging facilities, and develop and implement NextGen initiatives. FAA is essentially opening a new chapter in the history of ATC modernization with its plans for NextGen. The transition to NextGen is one of the most complex, high- risk undertakings FAA has ever attempted," the DOT IG reasons.

"Overall, we found that FAA has done a better job of managing cost growth and schedule delays with its major acquisitions since we last reported. This is because FAA has taken a more incremental approach to investment decisions to modernize controller displays, radars, and communication equipment. However, some key projects that will serve as platforms for NextGen are still at risk of cost growth, schedule slips, or diminishing benefits. We also found that FAA's metrics for measuring progress with acquisitions have limitations that decision makers should be aware of when reviewing FAA's capital account," the IG report states.

"Costs remain uncertain for NextGen, and FAA is still evaluating the best ways to obtain many NextGen capabilities, such as enhanced automation for boosting controller productivity and data link communications for controllers and pilots," it adds.

"FAA is also exploring what can be done in the near term. We note that over 30 existing capital projects will form platforms for NextGen, but FAA has not made significant changes to them. Our work shows that FAA will need to make several decisions between now and 2009 to determine how to achieve NextGen's capacity-enhancing capabilities," the report continued.

At the request of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the DOT IG examined: trends in recent FAA capital spending; changes in cost and schedule baselines of major acquisitions; and the effect of the transition to NextGen.

The internal watchdog agency found that recent capital funding has focused on sustaining the system but is now beginning to be shaped by NextGen. It found that "while the FAA is meeting acquisition cost and schedule metrics, the metrics do not take into account emerging changes in requirements or units to be procured...Much work is needed to determine NextGen's impact on existing programs and to set realistic expectations for what new capabilities can be delivered."

Recommendations to FAA focused on: (1) developing new metrics for measuring NextGen progress on expanding capacity and boosting productivity, (2) completing a gap analysis between the current National Airspace System and the NextGen enterprise architectures, and (3) establishing an interim architecture to determine priorities to allow more accurate NextGen costs and requirements.