Expediting Implementation of Air Traffic Management System Improvements. Conference. Held in Washington, DC on April 6, 2000.

摘要

Aviation stakeholders across the community agree on one point: it often takes a long time to implement improvements to the air traffic management (ATM) system. While some progress has been made on how to implement ATM system changes more expeditiously, many challenges remain. In the words of one FAA executive, 'We need to make technology work for us rather than working for technology.' The coordination of government and industry investments in new technologies represents a unique and multifaceted complex challenge. Decisions are often reached by consensus from a large number of diverse parties across the community in both the public and private sectors. These decisions are often complex and interdependent from technological, performance, political, financial, and implementation perspectives. Circumstances can often change making it difficult to maintain consensus and to make progress toward implementation. Understandably, aviation industry executives are reluctant to invest in new technologies without firm, long-term government commitments, and correspondingly, the government cannot often make such firm long-term commitments in the face of uncertain budgets and fragile community consensus. All of these factors and many others, no doubt, contribute to the problem.