No two cities are the same. However, all share the same high-level needs, to be more sustainable and improve the well-being of residents; to leverage the benefits of digitalisation and new technologies; and to create new business and work opportunities for citizens. Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) can help cities meet all these objectives, support more efficient medical services, bypass traffic jams, transform logistics and offer seamless sustainable transportation. But AAM needs to fit into existing mobility frameworks and pull in expertise from aviation, urban planning and mobility. Master planning and multi-disciplinary teams are fundamental to success, and in the remainder of this article I’ll explain the reasons why.
The reality of smart cities
Urban mobility is changing at pace, with countless innovations, projects and concepts progressing towards smart cities. Today, mobility apps and services are everywhere – for parking, taxis, trains, navigation, emissions, and charges. All rely on digitalisation, Internet of Things (IoT) artificial intelligence (AI), and on a willingness to adopt new technologies. Today’s urban mobility systems are already aligning energy, infrastructure, vehicle and data (systems) to facilitate efficient movement of people and goods. And as citizens, all of us are learning new ways to plan, operate and use urban transport systems.
The promise of AAM
AAM could help cities reduce carbon emissions, improve air quality and enhance citizens’ quality of life by providing expanded access to urban airspace and emergency services using low carbon vehicles, taking the pressure off existing networks. It could bridge connectivity gaps and offer on-demand mobility options to citizens and businesses. But AAM adds additional layers of complexity to urban planning and mobility systems, because with air transport a wider range of risks and regulations comes into play.
AAM describes air transportation systems that move people and cargo between places previously not served (or underserved) by aviation – local, regional, intraregional, and urban – using revolutionary new aircraft such as drones and electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles. It fits well within the idea of smart cities, but how can urban planners integrate AAM into existing frameworks? They will need to address five different dimensions: airspace, mobility planning, mobility management, information/systems, and master planning.
Five integration dimensions
Airspace.
Access to airspace above densely populated cities is a new challenge for planners. It is usually restricted for safety and environmental reasons and is carefully monitored for security reasons. The likely solution is the creation of air mobility corridors and the careful placement of vertiports. Noise and visual pollution will be a key consideration to ensure public acceptance even when weighed against the potential benefits. Who will manage urban airspace? At least four candidate organisations can be identified today: air navigation service providers (ANSPs), who manage crewed air traffic; U-space service providers, who manage uncrewed air traffic; local transport authorities, who manage urban mobility, and/or a new category of combined traffic manager. The question of who will manage urban airspace remains open.
Mobility planning.
AAM needs to be integrated into planning and policymaking at local, regional and indeed national levels of government. There is a need for greater awareness about AAM and its potential impacts among communities, which may have little prior experience with aviation planning issues. Although guidelines have been published at European level and in the US, currently, local authorities lack specific guidelines to evaluate planning applications for vertiports for example. In the US, The Community Air Mobility Initiative (CAMI), is collaborating with local authorities to establish town planning standards that can guide the integration of AAM into urban environments.
Mobility management.
Already in densely populated cities, there is increased competition for access to locations such as car parks, taxi stands, bus stops, delivery zones, cycle tracks etc. To that mix mobility managers now need to add drone take-off and landing areas ie. vertiports. How will access be managed? And who will manage the space between buildings and roads, ie. pavements and curbs? AAM will add another layer of complexity, highlighting the need to identify assets as well as define rules for shared use and governance. Users will need information/data through platforms and standardised applications interfaces (APIs).
Information and systems.
Today, mobility applications are facilitated by open data platforms that are both public (eg. French government) and private (eg. Google), providing APIs for access. Transit apps (e.g. Google Maps, Citymapper, Moovit) can then offer mobility services to end users. Can AAM fit into this open world? AAM data will not be about traffic management only, it will also include connections with other transport means, travel fees, waiting times at vertiports, etc. So, AAM will need to be developed or integrated with transit apps for residents and/or third parties, it will need to integrate traffic management systems with transport authorities’ Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). One tool that might help is Mobility Data Specification (MDS), a digital tool that helps cities to better manage transportation by standardising communication and data-sharing between cities and private mobility providers. To achieve all this, it will be essential to define data governance and data architecture.
Master planning.
Integrating AAM in cities is a complex issue because urban mobility is complex. Aviation cannot work on AAM in isolation, understanding urban planning and mobility concepts is essential. Concepts like transit-oriented design, public space management, Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) are all integral to the integration solution and implementing a mobility master plan is key to success. It brings a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to mobility, it establishes a common framework across all transport modes, it identifies stakeholders and organises governance.
The way ahead
Incorporating AAM into smart cities signifies a major transformation in urban transportation and development. By adopting cutting-edge technologies and fostering collaboration, cities can leverage AAM to improve mobility, connectivity and overall quality of life for their residents. New cities such as NEOM in Saudi Arabia, Dubai in the UAE, and Nusantara, Indonesia’s new capital, all include an aerial mobility angle to their mobility master plans. This is the way forward, a top-down approach that deals with the complexity and that efficiently rolls aviation, urban planning and mobility into one.
