The Future of Transportation: Urban Air Mobility
Urban Air Mobility (UAM) as a concept was defined by NASA as “safe and efficient air traffic operations in a metropolitan area for manned aircraft and unmanned aircraft systems” (Urban Air Mobility Airspace Integration Concepts and Considerations). With governments, enterprises, and research institutes paying increasing attention to UAM, this new concept has caught on quickly.
As a disruptive industry, UAM is expected to revolutionize existing transportation modes including highways, railways, airways, and waterways. A 2018 Morgan Stanley blue paper estimates that the global UAM addressable market would reach US$1.5 trillion by 2040.
As the size of urban populations grows, traffic congestion and air pollution remain major threats that take a toll on economic growth. It is imperative for governments to seek alternative solutions by making strategic moves to promote UAM system development as an alternative to existing ground transportation.
In this context, our white paper aims to explore the potential of UAM through insights into UAM applications and commercialization based on practical use cases. Starting from the UAM concept, it further explored the way how the UAM system can materially change people’s lives and impact the existing transportation modes. If safety, smart cities, and cluster management should form the three most fundamental tenets of a modern UAM system, future transportation would become smooth, smart, efficient, and eco-friendly. Given its innovative and disruptive nature, UAM has significant advantages over traditional transportation modes. The advent of 5G networks will further strengthen the function and capabilities of existing UAM platforms, which can remotely command a multitude of versatile AAVs more effectively.
The UAM concept could be further extended into applications in rural areas where the existing ground transportation infrastructure is inadequate. Besides transportation, UAM vehicles can function in specific scenarios in tourism, industrials, emergency medical services, fire control, and other use cases.
As technologies mature, they require collaboration between governments and enterprises to create new regulatory frameworks to facilitate future development. This is especially critical for UAM, starting now – not in the future. In addition, the ongoing collection of commercial operational data of current and future pilot projects will be necessary for supporting investment decisions in both the private and public sectors.
Overall, our empirical tests and research in UAM have strengthened our belief that UAM is no longer a dream of the future, but is already well on its way.