Presented last summer with a Government Accountability Office report critical of the short shrift human factors considerations have received in a multi-billion dollar air traffic modernization effort, the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA have responded with a plan that calls for the agencies to plan to cooperate more closely.

The GAO found that more attention to human factors in the NextGen program--the at least $40 billion program to shift national airspace system onto a satellite signal base--could have helped avoid some schedule overruns and cost increases, adding that NASA and the FAA needed a method to improve cross-agency coordination on human factors research and development.

In a document dated Feb. 28, FAA and NASA say they will, over the course of the next year, "work together to identify the policies, programs, budgets, personnel actions and partnerships necessary to do this."

Starting immediately, the two agencies will meet "at least annually" to jointly review their planned human factors research.

They will also immediately assess how their research can align to planned mid- and long-term NextGen operational improvements; share best practices; "leverage each other's researcher expertise and facilities;" and the FAA will continue to integrate NASA and other organizations' research into an online list of past, current and planned human factors research, the document states.

Human factors research and development focuses on how people interact with equipment and seeks to minimize the potential for design-induced error.

For more:
- download the FAA and NASA human factors research coordination plan (.pdf)
- go to the FAA human factors online research portfolio
- download the August 2010 GAO report on human factors in NextGen (.pdf)

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