Tentative Scope
Airport industry organizations, including the AAAE Operations, Safety, Planning and Emergency Management Committee, Airspace and Safety working group, has been looking for a number of years to develop a voluntary ramp/apron marking standard for U.S. airports that would give the industry the same benefits currently experienced for runways and taxiways. Up to now, airports operations and planning staffs have relied on local knowledge and industry communications to develop these local markings schemes. This creates confusion for unfamiliar pilots. The scope of the project is to describe the variation in airport apron and ramp markings used in directing pilots from terminal to and from taxiways.
FAA Advisory Circular 150/5340-1M, Standards for Airport Markings (5/10/2019, cancels version 1L, 9/27/2013) provides standards for surface markings used on airfield pavements (runways, taxiways, aprons, and paved airfield roadways). The standards for the surface markings assume that runways, taxiways, and aprons are built in accordance to the standard dimensions and layouts (e.g., clearances, fillets) in Advisory Circular (AC) 150/5300-13, Airport Design. ACRP Research Report 96, Apron Planning and Design Guidebook, was published in 2013. The report describes effective practices for airfield aprons and includes markings.
The objective of this synthesis is to document the variation in airport ramp and apron marking practices for standard and non-standard situations and contrast them with the current advisory circular. The audience for this synthesis report is airport planning, design and operations personal responsible for coordinating with others (airline tenants, FAA) toward pilot and aircraft safety while transiting ramps and aprons to and from active taxiways.
Tasks and resulting information to be described in a concise report:
• Review and document pertinent literature, including FAA Advisory Circulars
• Describe responsibilities for apron/ramp marking-airport, airline
• Collect data from airports regarding challenges and opportunities relating to variations in US apron/ramp configurations
• Describe typical and atypical apron/ramp markings and variations seen at US airports through data collection of at least 20 airports
• Document additional (to ACRP Research Report 96) case examples
• Describe any further research needs to close gaps in knowledge
Information will be collected through a literature review, a survey of US airports (geographically and NPIAS category distributed), with selected follow up to document case examples highlighting variation in practices not contained in ACRP Research Report 96.
Partial Information Sources
FAA Advisory Circular 150/5340-1M, Standards for Airport Markings (5/10/2019, cancels version 1L, 9/27/2013) https://www.faa.gov/airports/resources/advisory_circulars/index.cfm/go/document.current/documentnumber/150_5340-1
FAA Advisory Circular (AC) 150/5300-13, Airport Design (9/28/2012, updated 7/24/2019) https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/150-5300-13A-chg1-interactive-201907.pdf
ACRP Research Report 96, Apron Planning and Design Guidebook, 2013. https://www.nap.edu/download/22460
Topic Panel
TBD
Consultant
TBD
TRB Staff
Kerry L. Ahearn
202/334-2427
kahearn@nas.edu
Activities
1st Meeting
Teleconference
Workplan Delivered
Comments Due (Email)
Draft Report Delivered
2nd Panel Meeting
To Submit a Letter of Interest please click on the following link:
Submit a Letter of Interest.
