Advanced Air Mobility: Opportunities, Challenges, and Research Needs for the State of California (2023-2030)

Advanced air mobility (AAM) is a broad concept that enables consumers access to air mobility, goods delivery, and emergency services through an integrated and connected multimodal transportation network. AAM can provide shortrange urban, suburban, and rural flights of about 50-miles and mid-range regional flights up to a several hundred miles. State law delegates responsibility for oversight in aviation primarily to the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). This white paper presents an overview of the state of the market, such as the aircraft under development and forecast market growth and discusses factors that could facilitate the development of AAM or pose risks to its deployment or to the public, including the safety and the regulatory environment, airspace and air traffic management, security, environmental impacts, weather, infrastructure and multimodal integration, workforce and economic development, social equity, and community engagement and social acceptance. It concludes by recommending actions that Caltrans and other state agencies can take to facilitate the development of AAM.