Comparative Analysis of Topic Modeling Techniques on ATSB Text Narratives Using Natural Language Processing

Abstract: Improvements in aviation safety analysis call for innovative techniques to extract valuable insights from the abundance of textual data available in accident reports. This paper explores the application of four prominent topic modelling techniques, namely Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (pLSA), Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), and Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF), to dissect aviation incident narratives using the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) dataset. The study examines each technique's ability to unveil latent thematic structures within the data, providing safety professionals with a systematic approach to gain actionable insights. Through a comparative analysis, this research not only showcases the potential of these methods in aviation safety but also elucidates their distinct advantages and limitations.