Urban Air Mobility

Below are a selections of TSRC Publications related to Urban Air Mobility

Future of Aviation: Advancing Aerial Mobility through Technology, Sustainability, and On-Demand Flight

Adam Cohen, Susan Shaheen, PhD
2023

Advanced air mobility (AAM) is a broad concept enabling consumers access to air mobility, cargo and package delivery, healthcare applications, and emergency services through an integrated and connected multimodal transportation network. AAM includes local use cases of about a 50-mile radius in rural or urban areas and intraregional use cases of up to approximately 500 miles that occur within or between urban and rural areas. The Future of Aviation Conference: Advancing Aerial Mobility through Technology, Sustainability, and On-Demand Flight was held in person at the San Francisco...

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

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

Urban Air Mobility: Opportunities and Obstacles

Adam Cohen, Susan Shaheen, PhD
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...

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

Jacqueline Serrao, Sarah Nilsson, Shawn Kimmel
2018

This paper reviews existing and anticipated legal and regulatory requirements for urban air mobility. It also discusses variations in requirements observed at the local and state levels of government; international developments; certification issues; and opportunities to address legal barriers and gaps.

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

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

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...

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

Colleen Reiche, PhD, Adam Cohen, Chris Fernando
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...

The Potential Societal Barriers of Urban Air Mobility

Susan Shaheen, PhD, Adam Cohen, Emily Farrar
2018

Community perceptions of users and non-users could present challenges to adoption and mainstreaming of urban air mobility (UAM). A few potential concerns include noise and visual pollution; privacy (particularly for flights over sensitive land uses); social equity; and safety and security. This exploratory study reports the findings of two focus groups in Los Angeles and Washington D.C., and a five-city general population survey consisting of 1,700 respondents in Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. (approximately 350 respondents per city). The focus...

Reimagining the Future of Transportation with Personal Flight: Preparing and Planning for Urban Air Mobility

Adam Cohen, Justin Guan, Matthew Beamer, Ryan Dittoe, Seyemirsajad Mokhtarimousavi
2020

On January 12, 2020, the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies hosted a workshop titled “Reimagining the Future of Transportation with Personal Flight: Preparing and Planning for Urban Air Mobility” at the 99th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, D.C. This paper summarizes key findings from the workshop, such as the role of safety, community acceptance, multimodal vertiport infrastructure, and automation shaping the future of UAM. This paper discusses thoughts on the evolution of UAM; policy challenges and needs; barriers to...

Urban Air Mobility Market Study

Colleen Reiche, PhD, Rohit Goyal, Adam Cohen, Jacqueline Serrao, Shawn Kimmel, PhD, Chris Fernando, Susan Shaheen, 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...