IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reensy/v243y2024ics0951832023008190.html

Bayesian network model of aviation safety: Impact of new communication technologies on mid-air collisions

Author

Listed:
  • Bauranov, Aleksandar
  • Rakas, Jasenka

Abstract

This article presents a method of estimating the risk of a mid-air collision. The proposed method is an enhancement of the traditional aviation safety model - Integrated Safety Assessment Model (ISAM) - developed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and EUROCONTROL. ISAM is a mix of event-based models and fault trees that identifies causes of 35 different types of aviation accidents. While useful for conceptual understanding of accidents, the model does not handle human-technical or inter-system interactions. These drawbacks are especially evident when assessing safety impact of new communication, navigation and surveillance technologies since they rely on pilots and controllers. We propose a method of analyzing the impact of new technologies in aviation by presenting a case study of the Data Communication system – a new technology developed by the FAA used for communication between pilots and controllers. The method builds upon ISAM and leverages a Bayesian Network to estimate safety risk. The results indicate that the implementation of Data Comm can reduce the risk of collision by 25 %. In addition, if a collision has occurred, it is 10 million times more probable that the likely culprit is an error in human communication rather than a failure of communication equipment.

Suggested Citation

  • Bauranov, Aleksandar & Rakas, Jasenka, 2024. "Bayesian network model of aviation safety: Impact of new communication technologies on mid-air collisions," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:243:y:2024:i:c:s0951832023008190
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2023.109905
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0951832023008190
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ress.2023.109905?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yuankui Ma & Dae San Kim & Hyunseok Lee & Seongho Park & Taekyun Kim, 2022. "A Study On Multi-Stirling Numbers Of The First Kind," FRACTALS (fractals), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 30(10), pages 1-7, December.
    2. Khakzad, Nima & Khan, Faisal & Amyotte, Paul, 2011. "Safety analysis in process facilities: Comparison of fault tree and Bayesian network approaches," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 96(8), pages 925-932.
    3. Zhang, Xiaoge & Mahadevan, Sankaran, 2021. "Bayesian network modeling of accident investigation reports for aviation safety assessment," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    4. Li, Mei & Liu, Zixian & Li, Xiaopeng & Liu, Yiliu, 2019. "Dynamic risk assessment in healthcare based on Bayesian approach," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 327-334.
    5. Wang, Likun & Yang, Zaili, 2018. "Bayesian network modelling and analysis of accident severity in waterborne transportation: A case study in China," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 277-289.
    6. Ola Svenson, 1991. "The Accident Evolution and Barrier Function (AEB) Model Applied to Incident Analysis in the Processing Industries," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(3), pages 499-507, September.
    7. Jensen U., 2002. "Probabilistic Risk Analysis: Foundations and Methods," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 925-925, September.
    8. Stephen Thomas & Katrina M Groth, 2023. "Toward a hybrid causal framework for autonomous vehicle safety analysis," Journal of Risk and Reliability, , vol. 237(2), pages 367-388, April.
    9. Li, Huanhuan & Ren, Xujie & Yang, Zaili, 2023. "Data-driven Bayesian network for risk analysis of global maritime accidents," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    10. Netjasov, Fedja & Janic, Milan, 2008. "A review of research on risk and safety modelling in civil aviation," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 213-220.
    11. Ayoub, Ali & Stankovski, Andrej & Kröger, Wolfgang & Sornette, Didier, 2021. "Precursors and startling lessons: Statistical analysis of 1250 events with safety significance from the civil nuclear sector," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    12. Sherry S. Borener & Vitaly S. Guzhva, 2014. "Analysis of the Effects of Communication and Surveillance Facility Service Outages on Traffic Separations," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(9), pages 1753-1762, September.
    13. Fan, Shiqi & Blanco-Davis, Eduardo & Yang, Zaili & Zhang, Jinfen & Yan, Xinping, 2020. "Incorporation of human factors into maritime accident analysis using a data-driven Bayesian network," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    14. Zarei, Esmaeil & Khan, Faisal & Abbassi, Rouzbeh, 2021. "Importance of human reliability in process operation: A critical analysis," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    15. Li, Ting & Ren, Han, 2022. "The number of 4-cycles in a graph," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 428(C).
    16. Ersin Ancel & Ann T. Shih & Sharon M. Jones & Mary S. Reveley & James T. Luxhøj & Joni K. Evans, 2015. "Predictive safety analytics: inferring aviation accident shaping factors and causation," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 428-451, April.
    17. Bergström, Johan & van Winsen, Roel & Henriqson, Eder, 2015. "On the rationale of resilience in the domain of safety: A literature review," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 131-141.
    18. Skaltsas, Gerasimos & Rakas, Jasenka & Karlaftis, Matthew G., 2013. "An analysis of air traffic controller-pilot miscommunication in the NextGen environment," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 46-51.
    19. Aven, Terje & Ylönen, Marja, 2018. "A risk interpretation of sociotechnical safety perspectives," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 13-18.
    20. Ale, B.J.M. & Bellamy, L.J. & van der Boom, R. & Cooper, J. & Cooke, R.M. & Goossens, L.H.J. & Hale, A.R. & Kurowicka, D. & Morales, O. & Roelen, A.L.C. & Spouge, J., 2009. "Further development of a Causal model for Air Transport Safety (CATS): Building the mathematical heart," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 94(9), pages 1433-1441.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wen, He & Khan, Faisal & AbouRizk, Simaan & Fu, Gui, 2024. "Understanding of causality and its mathematical representation in accident modeling," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 250(C).
    2. Jing, Yongfeng & Yang, Xin & Yang, Yong & Jiao, Jian & Yuan, Yuan & Lu, Chen & Dui, Hongyan, 2026. "Reliability evaluation and multi-stage performance analysis of multi-state air-ground cooperative networks for city aviation and railway infrastructure," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 265(PA).
    3. Tan, Jia-Li & Fang, Sheng-En, 2025. "Evolutionary safety evaluation of a truss bridge using dynamic Bayesian networks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    4. Schneider, Moritz & Halekotte, Lukas & Comes, Tina & Lichte, Daniel & Fiedrich, Frank, 2025. "Emergency Response Inference Mapping (ERIMap): A Bayesian network-based method for dynamic observation processing," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    5. Zeng, Hang & Ren, Bo & Zhang, Lei & Zhang, Hongmei & Cui, Lijie & Guo, Jiansheng, 2026. "Enhanced small-sample aviation accident prediction via an improved WCGAN incorporating neuralprophet and gradient penalty," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 265(PA).
    6. He, Deqiang & Liang, Mi & Wu, Jinxin & Jin, Zhenzhen & Chen, Yanjun, 2026. "Hierarchical fault diagnosis of train communication networks based on cross-dimensional information fusion and mixture-of-head attention mechanism," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 265(PB).
    7. Liao, Wenyi & Qiao, Yidan & Dong, Tongxin & Gou, Zhiming & Chen, Dengkai, 2025. "A human reliability analysis method based on STPA-IDAC and BN-SLIM for driver take-over in Level 3 automated driving," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 254(PA).
    8. Karimi Dehkordi, Mohammadreza & Sattari, Fereshteh & Lefsrud, Lianne, 2025. "Creating an incident investigation framework for a complex socio-technical system: Application of multi-label text classification and Bayesian network structure learning," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhang, Xiaoge & Mahadevan, Sankaran, 2021. "Bayesian network modeling of accident investigation reports for aviation safety assessment," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    2. Hunte, Joshua L. & Neil, Martin & Fenton, Norman E., 2024. "A hybrid Bayesian network for medical device risk assessment and management," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    3. Sun, Xuting & Hu, Yue & Qin, Yichen & Zhang, Yuan, 2024. "Risk assessment of unmanned aerial vehicle accidents based on data-driven Bayesian networks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    4. Li, Huanhuan & Çelik, Cihad & Bashir, Musa & Zou, Lu & Yang, Zaili, 2024. "Incorporation of a global perspective into data-driven analysis of maritime collision accident risk," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).
    5. Wang, Yuhong & Li, Pengchang & Hong, Cheng & Yang, Zaili, 2025. "Causation analysis of ship collisions using a TM-FRAM model," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    6. Karimi Dehkordi, Mohammadreza & Sattari, Fereshteh & Lefsrud, Lianne, 2025. "Creating an incident investigation framework for a complex socio-technical system: Application of multi-label text classification and Bayesian network structure learning," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    7. Zhou, Kaiwen & Xing, Wenbin & Wang, Jingbo & Li, Huanhuan & Yang, Zaili, 2024. "A data-driven risk model for maritime casualty analysis: A global perspective," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    8. Meng, Huixing & Hu, Mengqian & Kong, Ziyan & Niu, Yiming & Liang, Jiali & Nie, Zhenyu & Xing, Jinduo, 2024. "Risk analysis of lithium-ion battery accidents based on physics-informed data-driven Bayesian networks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    9. Liu, Xintong & Ji, Huiting & Teixeira, Ângelo P. & Rong, Hao & Yu, Qing, 2026. "Enhancing maritime accident causation analysis through a hybrid machine learning approach," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 267(PB).
    10. Ung, S.T., 2021. "Navigation Risk estimation using a modified Bayesian Network modeling-a case study in Taiwan," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    11. Cankaya, Burak & Topuz, Kazim & Delen, Dursun & Glassman, Aaron, 2023. "Evidence-based managerial decision-making with machine learning: The case of Bayesian inference in aviation incidents," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    12. Wang, Jiaxin & Fan, Hanwen & Chang, Zheng & Lyu, Jing, 2025. "Unleashing data power: Driving maritime risk analysis with Bayesian networks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 264(PA).
    13. Li, Huanhuan & Ren, Xujie & Yang, Zaili, 2023. "Data-driven Bayesian network for risk analysis of global maritime accidents," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    14. Guo, Manze & Cao, Danni & Peng, Yongxin & Janson, Bruce, 2026. "Decoding the impact of extreme weather on aviation safety and economic losses using the SELENA-Net deep learning model," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 267(PA).
    15. Li, Baode & Lu, Jing & Li, Jing & Zhu, Xuebin & Huang, Chuan & Su, Wan, 2022. "Scenario evolutionary analysis for maritime emergencies using an ensemble belief rule base," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    16. Fan, Shiqi & Blanco-Davis, Eduardo & Yang, Zaili & Zhang, Jinfen & Yan, Xinping, 2020. "Incorporation of human factors into maritime accident analysis using a data-driven Bayesian network," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    17. Gursel, Ezgi & Madadi, Mahboubeh & Coble, Jamie Baalis & Agarwal, Vivek & Yadav, Vaibhav & Boring, Ronald L. & Khojandi, Anahita, 2025. "The role of AI in detecting and mitigating human errors in safety-critical industries: A review," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    18. Ma, Laihao & Ma, Xiaoxue & Du, Qiaoling & Zhang, Ruiwen, 2026. "Investigation of the severity of maritime accidents considering the interaction between human factors and operating conditions: A case study on collision accidents in China," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 265(PB).
    19. Ma, Shihui & Zayed, Tarek & Xing, Jiduo & Ren, Zhihao, 2025. "Analyzing factors influencing defect-based conditions for sewer pipes using Bayesian networks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    20. Guo, Yunlong & Jin, Yongxing & Hu, Shenping & Yang, Zaili & Xi, Yongtao & Han, Bing, 2023. "Risk evolution analysis of ship pilotage operation by an integrated model of FRAM and DBN," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:243:y:2024:i:c:s0951832023008190. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/reliability-engineering-and-system-safety .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.