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Transportation Challenges
Today's transportation system faces several pressing challenges,
which SATS is addressing:
- Accessibility. Nearly 96% of domestic
air travelers are forced to fly through fewer than 500 airports
and 70% through fewer than 35 of the nation’s more than
18,000 landing facilities both public and private.
- Result: Commercial operations have
come to depend on the hub-and-spoke system as a means
of creating the perception of efficiency. However, passengers
are limited to the air carriers schedule and the inefficiencies
of connections at distant hubs – traveling, on average,
one-third out of the way.
- Trends: The migration of people away
from urban and suburban centers will require greater
access to transportation from more widespread locations
throughout the country.
- How SATS Can Help: 98% of the U.S.
population lives within a 30-minute drive to more than
5,000 public-use landing facilities, representing an
untapped national resource for mobility. SATS will expand
access to these underutilized airports, opening up greater
air access and service to small cities and communities
across the country.
- Capacity. Since deregulation of the airline
industry, air travel has tripled in volume while the air
transportation infrastructure has remained relatively unchanged.
The number of domestic commercial travelers is expected
to double in ten years and triple in 20 years. As a result,
our air traffic system is approaching gridlock.
- Result: Our present system of air
traffic control, aircraft design and navigation is based
on decades-old technology that is costly to operate
and maintain, severely limiting the efficient use of
airspace for both general aviation and commercial operations.
- Trends: The demand for travel will
continue to increase in the next decades. Even the recent
boom in telecommunication and videoconferencing capabilities
has not decreased the demand for personal contact.
- How SATS Can Help: SATS can relieve…
- Productivity. Saturation of our civil
air transportation system is causing delays and disruptions
in air service, which seriously impact the U.S. economy.
The total estimated cost of air traffic delays in 2000 was
$6 billion for passengers and the airlines. Although the
value of time is at a premium in today’s information economy,
the nation’s doorstep-to-destination travel speed continues
to decline.
- Result: Many regional trips can
be driven in the same time (ore less) and for less cost
than it takes to fly commercially when considering connection
times and the time it takes to travel to and from the
airport.
- Trends: Our society is changing:
the value of time and the value of discretionary travel
will place new demands on current transportation systems.
Electronic commerce is continuing to grow in its domination
of the market, requiring newer, faster and less expensive
distribution systems. More flexibility and efficiency
for door-to-door travel will be needed.
- How SATS Can Help: New small aircraft
equipped with SATS-developed technologies can foster
the emergence of a new point-to-point, on-demand transportation
system with speeds up to three- or four-times faster
than highway speeds.
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