Statement of work system oriented runway management (sorm) sorm consists of two elements: runway configuration management (RCM) and combined arrival/departure runway scheduling (cadrs) 1.0…

Statement of work system oriented runway management (sorm) sorm consists of two elements: runway configuration management (RCM) and combined arrival/departure runway scheduling (cadrs) 1.0 background and introduction the current national airspace system (NAS) is approaching capacity limits. Four of the nation s 35 busiest airports are already at capacity and, in the absence of improvements, 27 will reach capacity limits by 2025, when air travel is projected to be double, or even triple, today s level. Current system procedures and limitations, and the absence of automation-based tools, define a highly constrained operating environment. To cope with future traffic demands, fundamental changes are required to effectively manage traffic at the strategic and tactical levels. New and innovative approaches to processes supporting optimized traffic flows will also be required. The joint planning and development office (jpdo) concept of operations for the next generation air transportation system (nextgen), version 2.0, provides the basis for pursuing research into the improvement of the NAS. National aeronautics and space administration (NASA) is pursuing focused research in support of nextgen through its aeronautics research mission directorate (armd). The armd airspace systems program (ASP) manages two projects: nextgen-airportal ( airportal ) and nextgen-airspace ( airspace ) projects. The airspace project focuses on improving operations in the EN-route environment as well as in the climb-out and descent phases. Airportal project research addresses operations on the airport surface and within the terminal area. A significant objective of airportal research is maximizing runway utilization and throughput. Runways are a limited resource and require effective management if efficiency gains in other areas of NAS operations are to be realized. To address the issue of runway management, NASA s ASP has created the system oriented runway management (sorm) research effort. The sorm work area is under the airportal project, coordinated arrival/departure operations management (cadom) research focus area (RFA). Sorm was originally named runway configuration management (RCM) and arrival/departure runway balancing (adrb). IT was determined that this name did not reflect the systemic approach that evolved from planning within the research team, therefore the name, systems oriented runway management, or sorm, was created. The two elements comprising sorm are runway configuration management (RCM) and combined arrival/departure runway scheduling (cadrs); combined arrival/departure runway scheduling was originally termed arrival/departure runway balancing (adrb). RCM is considered to be the process of designating active runways, monitoring the active runway configuration for suitability given existing factors, and predicting future configuration changes. Cadrs is the process by which arrivals and departures are assigned runways based on local (airport) and the national airspace system (NAS) goals through the effective distribution of arrival and departure traffic across active runways in conjunction with effective scheduling of traffic on those runways. Runway management is a cross-cutting activity for several reasons. Effective runway selection and scheduling requires close coordination with other elements and processes envisioned to be resident in future air traffic planning. These include schedulers for surface traffic (arrivals and departures), traffic schedulers for enroute operations (including arrival and departure traffic), traffic flow management planners, and dynamic airspace planners. These areas are being addressed in other rfas under the ASP and require coordination. There is also work being conducted by other organizations (domestic and international) that also require coordination to ensure that leveraging of efforts is accomplished. NASA will assume responsibility for ensuring that the required CO