Roadmap to Early Implementation of Passenger Air Mobility: Findings from a Delphi Study

Abstract

Urban air mobility (UAM) has recently increased in popularity as an emerging mode of transportation, covering a wide range of applications, for on-demand or scheduled operations of smaller aircraft, in and around metropolitan areas. Due to its novelty and as it has not yet been implemented, UAM research still faces uncertainties. In particular, there is a need to develop a roadmap for the early implementation of passenger air mobility, aiming to identify the most prominent challenges, opportunities, hazards, and risks, but also to highlight the most promising use cases, or on the contrary, the ones associated with the least benefits compared to the risks or complexity they entail. To answer the previous questions, and therefore address this research gap, this study used a two-round Delphi questionnaire, targeting various stakeholder groups (product owners, policymakers, researchers, consultants, investors), leading to a total of 51 experts, out of which 34 also participated in the second round. In the first round, the main challenges, opportunities, and hazards facing the implementation of passenger UAM were identified. Findings on challenges and opportunities that were dependent on use cases only (as opposed to being dependent on technology or external factors) were then fed back into the second round, which helped evaluate the use cases based both on their complexities, as well as the associated benefits. Accordingly, medical/emergency was identified as the best use case and intracity transport as the worst (in terms of complexity vs. benefits). Similarly, a risk analysis evaluated the potential hazards associated with the implementation of UAM and their impacts on the system viability. Community backlash was found to be the most hazardous one, while malicious passenger behavior and improperly designed infrastructure as the least. Findings from this study can help better understand stakeholders’ opinions, highlighting promising use cases, but also risks to be aware of, constituting therefore a roadmap for future implementation.

A Framework to Develop Urban Aerial Networks by Using a Digital Twin Approach

“…As for environmental impacts in particular, several hypotheses on the expected traffic at the vertiport could provide different solutions, thus also suggesting capacity limits to guarantee good life quality levels to the community living around the vertiport. Finally, it is worth noting that airports are expected to host vertiports inside or close to their neighbourhood [55], especially for aerial airport shuttle services. Mainly for airports close to urban areas (city airports)-but generally for airports serving a given territorial system-the digital twin should also include information on aircraft take-off and landing trajectories (and the consequent obstacle limitation surfaces) in order to consider the potential risks due to ACVs movements in airport area and the related possible interferences with traditional aviation.…”

A New Mobility Era: Stakeholders’ Insights regarding Urban Air Mobility

“…The way UAM is going to be introduced in the existing transport system has been discussed in the existing scientific and gray literature. The majority of works support that UAM will enter the market in the form of an on-demand service offered to one (e.g., air taxi) or multiple users (e.g., air pooling) [3,6,7], while a small part of the existing literature identifies UAM as a private mode [8] or a scheduled and semi-scheduled service [9]. As for the needed ground infrastructure for UAM, the basic idea is that eVToLs would need infrastructure with specific characteristics.…”

“…It is widely acknowledged that stakeholders' involvement is an essential prerequisite for the successful deployment of emerging technologies and innovative concepts from the beginning of the development process [7]. In the stakeholder analysis, the researchers gather and analyze qualitative information to determine whose interests and viewpoints should be considered for the implementation of the concept under study [12,13].…”