Human Factors Research Funding

Testimony on Behalf of The American Psychological Association,
the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society,
and the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences

Regarding the Fiscal Year 2001 Appropriation for Human Factors Research at the Federal Aviation Administration

David Johnson, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences

Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, I am speaking on behalf of the scientists who help assure the safety of flight through their research on human performance and through applications of that research. The work of these scientists is supported through the Human Factors Division of the FAA’s Office of Aviation Research. This is a small division, now funded at $21.9 million. Its significance, though, is much greater than its support level. It was this Division to which you gave ten million dollars between fiscal years 1998 and 1999 to identify and fix design flaws in the new terminal controller and maintenance and control workstations when controllers told you they were unsafe. My colleagues and I have argued before this Subcommittee for a number of years that emergency fixes like these could be avoided if human factors scientists were included in design and planning processes from the beginning. We are gratified that the FAA is now beginning to work with Integrated Product Teams that give some consideration to human factors engineering, and hope that inclusion of human factors scientists will become routine.

In my testimony today, I want to dwell on the issue of whether it is better to put money into research and application up front, or to wait and pay to retrofit after it is discovered that something doesn’t work. The President’s 2001 budget request for this work is $25.099 million, an increase of $3.128 million. This increase simply allows the Division to continue doing what it has been doing without support for new programming. Funding for this Division has not always been so modest. In 1995, $37.4 million was budgeted, nearly double its 2000 funding. The following year, however, the budget was cut by over a third. We are now recommending a budget of $33.99 million with $12.319 million going to the Flight Deck program, $12.7 million to the Air Traffic program, and $5.367 million going to the Aeromedical and Security program. Allowing only incremental recovery from a deep cut comes at a cost. A $25 million budget will allow the Human Factors division to address pressing short-term needs. $34 million buys the ability to get ahead of the curve.

With adequate funding, the flight deck program will be able to accelerate the process of identifying and addressing error so that opportunities for disastrous errors are eliminated in advance rather than after a disaster. Strategies for maintaining crew performance in the face of fundamental changes in flight, such as those that will emerge from free flight, could be tested thoroughly before they come into general use. The impact of new automation capabilities could be better understood before particular capabilities are deployed. In the air traffic program, a major concern is the integration of new systems as they come online. It is well known that errors rise when new technology is introduced, even when the new technology is very good. With adequate funds, air traffic control errors could be minimized and the period of adaptation to new technologies reduced. With current funds, it isn’t clear whether the Human Factors Division will be able to respond to all the problems that will be arising from current use. It won’t be able to mitigate error in systems that haven’t yet come on line; The "look ahead" money just isn’t there. In the aeromedicine and security program, funds are inadequate to link FAA efforts in passenger safety with those of NIOSH or with international partners. This is a problem because the partnerships that are growing between U.S. and non-U.S. carriers mean that U.S. citizens booking flights with U.S. companies for travel out of the country will be traveling on non-U.S. carriers. The aeromedicine and security program lacks funds to establish partnerships with its international counterparts that are needed to help assure the safety and security of U.S. citizens booked by U.S. carriers, but flying on the planes of non-U.S. companies.The requested budget is enough to play catch-up ball; to react rather than to anticipate. As change accelerates in the airline industry, the inadequacy of that strategy will become too apparent. Now is the right time to give researchers resources to build safety in rather than to learn from disasters what should have been done.