Urban Air Mobility

Urban Air Mobility: Opportunities and Obstacles

Cohen, Adam
Shaheen, Susan
2021

Urban Air Mobility (UAM, also known as advanced air mobility) is an emerging concept that envisions a safe, sustainable, affordable, and accessible air transportation system for emergency management, cargo delivery, and passenger mobility within or traversing a metropolitan area. While numerous societal concerns have been raised about these approaches (e.g., privacy, safety, security, social equity), on-demand aviation has the potential to provide options for emergency services, goods delivery, and passenger mobility in urban and rural areas using small piloted and autonomous aircraft....

A Legal and Regulatory Assessment for the Potential of Urban Air Mobility (UAM)

Serrao, Jaqueline
Nilsson, Sarah
Kimmel, Shawn
2018

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is an emerging concept of air transportation where small package delivery drones to passenger-carrying air taxis operate over populated areas, from small towns to the largest cities are being considered. This could revolutionize the way people move within and around cities by shortening commute times, bypassing ground congestion, and enabling point-to-point flights across cities. In recent years, several companies have designed and tested enabling elements of this concept, including; prototypes of Vertical Take-Off Landing (VTOL) capable vehicles, understanding of...

Mobility on Demand Planning and Implementation: Current Practices, Innovations, and Emerging Mobility Futures

Shaheen, Susan
Cohen, Adam
Broader, Jacquelyn
Davis, Richard
Brown, Les
Neelakantan, Radha
Gopalakrishna, Deepak
2020

This report provides Mobility on Demand (MOD) planning and implementation practices and tools to support communities. The report discusses different stakeholders in the MOD ecosystem and the role of partnerships in filling spatial, temporal, and other service gaps. Additionally, the report discusses how MOD can be integrated into transportation planning and modeling. The report also discusses shared mobility implementation considerations, such as rights-of-way management, multimodal integration, data sharing, equity, labor impacts, and the role of pilot evaluations. Finally, the report...

An Assessment of the Potential Weather Barriers of Urban Air Mobility (UAM)

Reiche, Colleen PhD
Brody, Frank
McGillen, Christian
Siegel, Joel
Cohen, Adam
2018

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is an emerging concept of air transportation where small package delivery drones to passenger-carrying air taxis operate over populated areas from small towns to the largest cities. This could revolutionize the way people move within and around cities by shortening commute times, bypassing ground congestion, and enabling point-to-point flights across cities. In recent years, several companies have designed and tested enabling elements of this concept, including; prototypes of Vertical Take-Off Landing (VTOL) capable vehicles, understanding of operational concepts,...

Advanced Air Mobility Community Integration Considerations Playbook

Cohen, Adam
Hasan, Shahab
Mendonca, Nancy L.
Wulff, Yolanka
2023

Aviation is undergoing rapid change due to advancements in technology, new business models, changing consumer preferences, and other trends. These trends are poised to change the way people travel by air. Advanced air mobility (AAM) is a broad concept focusing on leveraging these trends to include routine aviation mobility in urban, suburban, and rural communities. NASA envisions AAM as safe, sustainable, accessible, and affordable aviation for transformational local and intraregional missions. But it’s worth noting that this vision, AAM associated terms, and even the definition of AAM...

Urban Air Mobility Market Study

Reiche, Colleen PhD
Goyal, Rohit
Cohen, Adam
Serrao, Jaqueline
Kimmel, Shawn, PhD
Fernando, Chris
Shaheen, Susan, PhD
2018

The Booz Allen Team explored market size and potential barriers to Urban Air Mobility (UAM) by focusing on three potential markets – Airport Shuttle, Air Taxi, and Air Ambulance. We found that the Airport Shuttle and Air Taxi markets are viable, with a significant total available market value in the U.S. of $500 billion, for a fully unconstrained scenario. In this unconstrained best-case scenario, passengers would have the ability to access and fly a UAM at any time, from any location to any destination, without being hindered by constraints such as weather, infrastructure, or traffic...

An Initial Assessment of the Potential Weather Barriers of Urban Air Mobility

Reiche, Colleen PhD
Cohen, Adam
Fernando, Chris
2021

Urban Air Mobility (UAM), a subset of advanced air mobility, is a concept that envisions safe, sustainable, affordable, and accessible air transportation for passenger mobility, cargo delivery, and emergency management within or traversing a metropolitan area. In recent years, several companies have designed and tested enabling elements of this concept, including; prototypes of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, operational concepts, and market studies to understand potential business models. While UAM may be enabled by the convergence of several factors, a number of barriers...

Advanced Air Mobility: Demand Analysis and Market Potential of the Airport Shuttle and Air Taxi Markets

Goyal, Rohit
Reiche, Colleen
Fernando, Chris
Cohen, Adam
2021

Advanced air mobility (AAM) is a broad concept enabling consumers access to on-demand air mobility, cargo and package delivery, healthcare applications, and emergency services through an integrated and connected multimodal transportation network. However, a number of challenges could impact AAM’s growth potential, such as autonomous flight, the availability of take-off and landing infrastructure (i.e., vertiports), integration into airspace and other modes of transportation, and competition with shared automated vehicles. This article discusses the results of a demand analysis examining...

Urban Air Mobility: History, Ecosystem, Market Potential, and Challenges

Cohen, Adam P.
Shaheen, Susan A.
Farrar, Emily M.
2021

Since the early 20th century, inventors have conceptualized “plane cars” and other urban aerial transportation. Emerging innovations in electrification, automation, and other technologies are enabling new opportunities for on-demand air mobility, business models, and aircraft design. Urban air mobility (UAM) envisions a safe, sustainable, affordable, and accessible air transportation system for passenger mobility, goods delivery, and emergency services within or traversing metropolitan areas. This research employed a multi-method approach comprised of 106...