Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Human-Machine Interface; Distraction; Confusion; Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Chart Or Publication; Procedure
The SERFR Arrival into SFO is designed and drawn on the chart correctly; however at the bottom of the chart the description blocks are specific to a Western Routing and Eastern Routing. The difficulty arises that the routings are; in fact; opposite and pertain to a runway choice; however there is no clarification of that in the chart planview. In other words given a western arrival; you fly the eastern track and plan on a 28 arrival landing west. For a landing on the 10's you must fly the eastern arrival; track the westernmost of the pathways; and then expect that. Runway 19 has no southern routing; and thus simply would mean you fly the western track under the title eastern routing and expect a southerly approach. [This is a] bad chart design; geographically challenging from a conceptual point of view.[They need to] redraw that chart to be runway specific; like SLC for example; 'Landing North' on the BVL (BONNEVILLE) STAR; which assigns a track to a specific numbered set of runways.
A CRJ-200 Captain describes the confusion faced by flight crews when utilizing the SERFR RNAV STAR to SFO. The confusion arises from the use of the words 'EAST' in the textual description of the runway 'TRANSITION' route which passes 'WEST' of the airport in order to land to the 'SOUTH' on runways 19L/R and the use of the word 'WEST' to describe the Easternmost of the two transition tracks to land on Runways 28L/R.