[thomas_witt]

How would you exactly "digitize"? While that sounds like a nice idea in theory it's the same as "digitizing" road traffic.

In the end the air traffic system is a highly complex but also a highly reliable system, especially when you compare accident rates.

I am sure the working conditions of ATC staff might be improved - but being both a pilot and a programmer, I know that there is no easy digitalization magic wand for aviation.

[njovin]

The Runway Status Light system already does this via automated monitoring of traffic from multiple systems: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/rwsl

I'm sure the NTSB report will cover why this didn't stop the accident. Presumably either the system wasn't working as-expected, or the fire truck proceeded despite the warning lights since they had clearance from the controller.

The system is only advisory at present, so if the truck did see a warning light and proceeded anyway, they were technically permitted to do so.

[ApolloFortyNine]

>In the end the air traffic system is a highly complex but also a highly reliable system, especially when you compare accident rates.

1700 incursions a year, and other articles mentioning multiple near misses a week at a single airport [1]. It is safe in practice, likely largely due to the pilots here also being heavily trained and looking for mistakes, but it seems a lot like rolling the dice for a bad day.

>I am sure the working conditions of ATC staff might be improved - but being both a pilot and a programmer, I know that there is no easy digitalization magic wand for aviation.

I didn't say it'd be free. Just hard to believe radio voice communication is the best way to go.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/21/business/airl...

[PunchyHamster]

It's already digitized, he's clueless. The ATC knows where vehicle was and where the plane is going, it looks as simple case of mistake or maybe not watertight enough procedures

[coryrc]

> While that sounds like a nice idea in theory it's the same as "digitizing" road traffic.

Traffic lights instead of mad max intersections are better.

Then there's subway Automatic Train Control.

I don't know that Air Traffic Control staff don't have computer systems for establishing which plane owns what airspace. They at least did do it manually already following specific processes, so it can be at least augmented and a computer can check for conflicts automatically (if it isn't already). And, sure, ATC could still use radio, but there could be a digital standard for ensuring everybody has access to all local airspace data. Or maybe that wouldn't help.

Your ground vehicle wanting to cross a runway could have the driver punch "cross runway 5" button (cross-referenced with GPS) and try to grab an immediate 30 second mutex on it. The computer can check that the runway is not allocated in that time (i.e. it could be allocated 2 minutes in the future, and that would be fine).

But, as pointed out elsewhere, obviously some of this is already present: stop lights are supposed to be present at this intersection.

[bryan_w]

The problem is knowing before today how to handle the case where a ground vehicle isn't across the runway in those 30 seconds.

[zanderz]

Maybe they need to put a traffic circle at this intersection.

[throwway120385]

I'm sure they've started all of this a few times over the past decade. The problem is in the US if you can't start and finish a project like that in less than 2 years then it's effectively dead in the water. The last time we "modernized" ATC was closer to the 90's than today, when there was still some general political will to make our government agencies modern instead of tearing them to pieces.

[nradov]

The FAA NextGen program has been running for literally decades. They have made some progress but there's a lot of work left to be done.

https://www.faa.gov/nextgen