How easy is it to interpret the airport signs that you see everywhere ? When you taxi around some of the larger airports you can see signs with a mixture of letters, numbers and arrows pointing in all directions. Some are easy to work out while others are not. One sign can have a yellow C and a black C as well.
Obviously there is an international convention but how easy is it to get it wrong ?
As usual there are a number of 'standards'. The USA always tends to go its own way, and then we have everybody else....and then the places that are exceptions to all of the rules.
Vancouver was totally non standard, but its use of neon signs, that incorporated directional arrows would probably have been the simplest to understand that I have come across.
Some places are more logical than others. Singapore for instance has WA, WP, EA, and EP...which simply translate as western apron, western parallel, etc. And the crossings from one side to the other are north cross or south cross (with an appropriate number).
Tokyo Narita was always a confusing nightmare, especially at night. The Douglas Adams method of finding someone who looked like they knew where they were going, and to follow them, might be useful there.
London has a confusing mix of taxiways that have letters, other places that are called 'blocks', and then holding points that have names (instead of using the taxiway designator). Like everything, you get used to it.
Operations on the ground can be fraught for many reasons. Wingtips and obstructions tend to mix badly. Getting lost is surprisingly easy, especially at night, when you can be in the midst of a sea of blue lights (taxiway edge lighting). The NOTAMs that notify us of changes, or 'works' at an airfield are normally extremely cryptic, and seem written more as a way of exonerating the authorities in the event of an incident, than as a way of clearly getting information about closures across to the crews.
