The development of improved models of air travel demand at a market and national level, as well as many other analyses that form the basis of local, regional and state airport system planning, requires information on the characteristics of the air passenger trips that comprise the existing pattern of air travel. While detailed information on the number of these trips, together with the airlines used, fares paid and trip itineraries, is available from the data reported to the U.S. Department of Transportation by airlines, very little is known about the purpose pf these trips and other characteristics of the air parties involved, such as their income, occupation, travel party size, day and time of travel, trip duration, and so forth. None of this information is currently reported by the airlines and indeed much of it is not even known by them. The only practical way to get most of this information is to ask the travelers themselves through an air passenger or household survey.

Such surveys are routinely conducted by airport authorities, regional planning agencies, and others, but the results are not readily available at a national level. Furthermore, since these surveys are performed at different times, using different survey instruments and different sample sizes, combining the results of such surveys is technically challenging, even after the hurdle of actually locating and obtaining the data has been overcome. Some of the challenges involved in undertaking air passenger surveys and making use of the results of such surveys were discussed at a recent workshop on Air Passenger Survey Methodology, which was held as part of the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in January 2004. Among the issues addressed at the workshop were the need to be able to combine the results of surveys at different airports in order to support regional aviation system planning and a proposed research agenda in air passenger survey methodology in order to develop improved guidance on the design and conduct of future surveys.

In order to address these needs, access to, and the use of, air passenger data would be greatly facilitated by a national archive of air passenger survey results, together with appropriate information on the survey methodology used. The ability to compare the results of local surveys with those conducted elsewhere would provide some incentive to airport authorities and other agencies to contribute their survey results to such an archive. They would also benefit from the results of research into survey methodology and other airport planning issues that would be enabled by such an archive.

For ease of access to the resulting data, it is envisaged that a national archive would be implemented as a web-based database. Password protection could be provided to control access to selected parts of the database, if this is found to be desirable. However, there are many technical, logistical and cost questions that would need to be answered before such an archive could be effectively implemented. In order to answer those questions, as well as explore the practicalities and usefulness of such an archive, at the request of FAA Office of Airport Planning and Programming (APP-400) the Airport Technology Branch of the FAA Technical Center is funding the National Center of Excellence for Aviation Operations Research (NEXTOR) to research the feasibility and potential benefits of the development of a web-based national database of air passenger travel characteristics from air passenger surveys conducted by airport authorities, regional planning agencies and others.

As part of this research, NEXTOR will identify sources of air passenger survey data and previous attempts to integrate data from multiple surveys, define an operational concept for a national database of air passenger survey data, and undertake a proof of concept study that will develop a web-based prototype database of selected air passenger survey data and undertake representative analysis of air passenger survey data that combines information from multiple surveys.

The project is being performed under the direction of Prof. Mark Hansen with technical support from Dr. Geoffrey Gosling of Aviation Systems Consulting, LLC.