Surface management systems like Aerobahn from Saab Sensis Corporation enable airports, airlines, and air navigation service providers to more efficiently and cost-effectively manage and measure airside operations. Saab Sensis offers surface management system at JFK Airport. Flight Details and Regional Occupancy data from Saab sensors provide information related to an aircraft operation to a very minute detail.

Aircraft geolocation data is used to generate a multitude of metrics aiming at characterizing aircraft operations on an airfield. Innovative data mining and analytical techniques facilitate the consolidation and smart compilation of key information on airports surface operations. Analytics on runway occupancy and crossing patterns, congestion hotspots/queue lengths, and taxiing behaviors depict a potential scope in improving terminal access and ground operations performance. These techniques allow the airport and its tenants to gather some unique intelligence in a timely manner, across any time period using the wealth of untapped data ensuring safe and efficient operations.

JFK International Airport (JFK) introduced an innovative surface congestion management program called metering program in 2010. The goal of metering procedures is to shift aircraft departure queuing from the taxiway system to ramp and remote metering areas.