ON DEMAND URBAN AIR TRANSPORT

"ON-DEMAND URBAN AIR TRANSPORT"

Note: [VTOL: Vertical take off and Landing].[e-VTOL: VTOL electric vehicle]

It's 3pm on any Friday of 2027 in Madrid. People flock out of the offices to enjoy the weekend. A few years ago and at that time, Madrid would be collapsed with cars, noise and fumes with people spending 90min or more to reach their destinations. But this is no longer the case. I will pick up my mobile phone and through an APP  I will ask for an individual electric autonomous VTOL to pick me up at the vertistop (small stop) in Plaza Colón in Madrid that will take me to my house in Getafe in 12 minutes. 

Joby Aviation Photo

While I'm walking to Plaza de Colón, which is 10 minutes from the office where I work, I'm being flown by a bigger eVTOL with 5 people on board who are sharing a trip and just behind the public eVTOL nº27 of the EMT line(Madrid City Transport Company)and with its pilot-driver makes the journey from the northern node of the M-30 to Legazpi along the axis of Paseo de la Castellana. It's fantastic how little noise such vehicle make. 

On some rooftops of office buildings and in most public buildings, on many roundabouts, in the old areas of large car parks on the ground, in heliports that were not used in many tall buildings, there are vertiports larger than vertistop ones where there are electric VTOLs of greater capacity and where you can even recharge the batteries of these aerial vehicles quickly.

As I fly over Madrid quickly, I look at the horizon and don't see the fungus of contamination that was seen years ago. As I read some e-mails during the trip, I realize that I've just arrived home.

Fiction? You don't seem to be considering the following. 

In April of this year, the first Uber Elevate Summit was held in Dallas to bring together many of the leading experts, interest groups, universities and associations such as MIT, the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers of the United States, NASA, or the FAA (U. S. Federal Aviation Administration) or companies such as the Bell Helicopters, Aurora Flight Sciences, Embraer, Airbus, Lilium Aviation, Siemens or Uber….. with the clear objective of discussing the pros and cons of URBAN AUTONOMOUS AIR TRANSPORT and promoting it.

To be clear about what this urban transport encompasses, I'm going to detail the topics discussed at this meeting:

• Necessary standards and regulations. Aeronautics Authorities. Certifications.
• Airspace and eVTOL operations. Traffic Safety and Control.
• Transition from the eVTOL piloted to the autonomous.
• eVTOL technologies. Development. Evtol security.
• Early adoption in some cities and tests. Modelling.
• Opportunities of the eVTOL market. Synergies.
• Landing and take-off infrastructures: Vertiports and Vertistops.
• Noise and pollution.
• Fast chargers and batteries
• Evtol Energy Storage
• Investors
• Travel on Demand
• Urban mobility
• Education

I find the initiative that Uber has promoted through UBER ELEVATE on urban air transport on demand exciting.  The possibilities for improving the regional economy (which I mentioned a couple of years ago in a post), such as reducing pollution and improving urban mobility, seem clear.

Let's not think this is unreal. Right now, as we read these lines there are dozens of companies that are designing electric VTOLs or different airborne vehicles with the possibility of taking off and landing like a helicopter, moving like an airplane and not polluting.

Meanwhile, others have already built prototypes and carried out flight tests.

Examples of which we have around us: 

https://www.volocopter.com/de/--dubai 2020

https://lilium.com/

www.airbus-sv.com/

www.aurora.aero/innovation/

www.stoprotor.com.au/

www.voltavolare.com/

https://vahana.aero/

http://moller.com/

https://www.terrafugia.com/about-terrafugia/

www.xtiaircraft.com/home/

How did we get here? 

• Difficulties in moving around cities and the time factor.
• The exponential increase in the number of cars.
• Contamination caused by vehicles (noise and smoke)
• The development of large capacity batteries and fast recharging from Tesla and other manufacturers.
• The development of autonomous electric cars by many brands
• The aeronautical development of the VTOLs
• Development of drones/UAVs
• Non-use of infrastructures and spaces in cities
• The implementation of on-demand travel by Uber or other platforms such as Voom for Helicopter travel on online booking platforms.
• The growth of cities.

Will it be the end of the cars? Possibly not. But the transformation to the autonomous electric car is already underway. Perhaps even most people don't get compensated for owning a car, but in leasing or prefer to have a VTOL or just share it. But it is clear that the more research and development progress is made with electric autonomous cars, the more the road is smoothed out for autonomous urban and electric air transport as well.

While we are waiting for the next Uber Elevate Summit in 2018 and  we enjoy the first VTOL flights and visualize the first operations in a city like Dubai by 2020, I invite you to read Uber Elevate's White Paper on this meeting in Dallas.

https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf

After all, 2020 is not that far behind. The first tests have already been carried out in September 2017 in Dubai.
Volocopter takes flight in Dubai