Finger-pointed in long-haul transport, will air travel make an unexpected appearance in urban transport? It’s, at least, a possibility that the European Union wants to investigate.
Decongest city centers and combat urban pollution
The aim is to find an alternative or complement to land-based transport to relieve congestion in city centers and combat pollution. To this end, a consortium called AMU-LED (Air Mobility Urban – Large Experimental Demonstration) will be testing around 100 drones in selected cities in Spain, the Netherlands and the UK (strange as this may sound for a European project).
The various use cases evaluated will be passenger transport, logistics, surveillance, emergency services… to see if it is possible to set up more flexible, efficient, less polluting services and reduce traffic jams.
A concept on the rise
Urban air mobility is seen by many as a runway for the future, and indeed France is seriously thinking about it in the run-up to the 2024 Olympics.
Such an offer will of course require specific regulations, and the experiments that are about to be carried out will help to better understand the challenges of this new form of mobility.
But there is no time to waste, because what now seems like a science fiction movie will soon become reality. In the USA, United has made an engagement with the start-up Archer to purchase 200 units of an electric vertical take-off aircraft (eVTOL), to be operated between airports and city centers from 2026.
Photo: urban flying cab by u3d via Shutterstock
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