Dr. Richard Ji of the Airport Technology Research & Development Branch (ATR) presented at the 2023 Annual Road Profile User’s Group (RPUG) Conference in O’Fallon, IL on May 1-4, 2023. The conference focuses on state-of-the-art technologies in pavement profilers and friction measurement and calibration tools.

Dr. Ji presented the newly developed Runway Roughness Index (RRI), which was established through research conducted by ATR. The RRI is a critical component to measuring and evaluating the roughness of airport pavement, which can directly affect passenger ride quality. The new RRI was developed based on the Boeing Bump Index (BBI), pilot ratings to simulator testing, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) human vibration discomfort standards, and ProFAA’s aircraft simulation. ProFAA is an FAA-designed software offering multiple pavement indexes, used to evaluate airport pavement roughness and smoothness from airport pavement profiles.

Dr. Richard Ji | Richard.ji@faa.gov