The FAA has identified a number of critical safety areas that airports need to maintain to specific standards to protect aircraft, passengers, people, and property. The runway safety area (RSA) is one such area that is designed to protect aircraft utilizing the runway. The runway protection zone (RPZ) is designed to enhance the protection of people and property on the ground.

The FAA recommends that the RPZ is clear of structures and people, but activities occur within a RPZ at airports for any number of reasons, some of which are beyond the control of the airport. For example, the introduction of GPS approaches can increase the size of the RPZ that had previously been maintained, thus introducing activities into the RPZ that were once outside.

 

The objectives of this research are to develop (1) a tool for airports that will assess the risk (a) of an aircraft accident in a RPZ and (b) based on the output in the first analysis, assess the risk to people and property based on a density measure, and land use; and (2) a users’ guide. Airports will use the output from both sections of the tool to develop mitigation strategies as part of their overall planning process.  The first part of the tool will assess the probability of an aircraft accident in the RPZ, and should be based on (1) a quantifiable risk analysis of accidents and incidents that have occurred in RPZs within the United States and relevant international data within the last 20 years; (2) an analysis of historical trends of accidents relative to the RPZ both within the U.S. and internationally for the past 20 years; and, (3) other factors that influence the risk analysis, such as weather, geography, topography, type of approach, aircraft type, type of operations, and so on. Airports will use the second part of the tool to determine the severity of the risk to people and property for a specific RPZ. The airport will input two sets of data in the second part: site-specific factors as identified in the first part, and the range of density measures, land uses, and any other relevant factors.

The users’ guide should include at a minimum:

STATUS: This has been published ACRP Report 168: Runway Protection Zone (RPZs) Risk Assessment Tool Users' Guide as well as the RPZ_RAT Tool that can also be downloaded. The Contractor's Final Report is also available on how the research was conducted and an explanation of the methodology.