Airbus Imagines a New Urban Mobility Ecosystem

By 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population will be urban, of which 80 percent will be in low or middle income countries with 90 percent of the urban population growth coming from emerging economies.

Latin America is already very urban. With more than 80 percent of people living in urban areas, the Latin America region represents 8 percent of the world population but it also includes 11 percent of the 100 most polluted cities. In terms of congestion, in Brazil for example, motorists spend an annual average of 154 hours in Sao Paulo and nearly 200 hours in Rio while driving in an estimated 100 million cars throughout Brazil. 

To help cities cope with this massive population and congestion growth, urban transport solutions need to safely and sustainably improve the way people get from A to B. Airbus believes urban air mobility can contribute positively to a multimodal mobility system and help build more livable cities. 

Leveraging the sky to better link people to cities and regions will give city dwellers more possibilities to connect while supporting a balanced development of regions. It will also bring the safety, convenience, and joy of flight to urban communities, and enhance the coverage and reach of transportation systems with minimal land impact. Electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOL)  represent a sustainable complement to existing transport modes, with no CO₂ or other emissions linked to climate change and increased health risks. 

Making this reality fly requires all pieces of the urban air mobility puzzle coming together. Airbus’ approach includes looking at how all the critical components—technology, business models, city integration, infrastructure development, and airspace management—can come together to take urban transport into the sky to ensure maximum societal benefits for urban communities worldwide. 

To be clear, urban air mobility is not just about developing new electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles. It’s a complex ecosystem with critical pieces including designing a safe vehicle, offering the service to passengers, designing a safe Traffic Management for Unmanned and Manned vehicles, as well as building infrastructures that integrate with existing transportation modes. On the vehicle side, Airbus is well-suited to succeed considering its long history of designing, manufacturing and certifying airborne vehicles. 

Airbus made the move to create Airbus Urban Mobility in June 2018 to host its ongoing UAM activities across the company, including Voom to unmanned traffic management (UTM) and city integration and infrastructure development. The entity also steers the development of Airbus’ ongoing electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) technology demonstrators, Vahana and CityAirbus.

Check out a recent presentation by Darcy Olmos, Head of Urban Air Mobility for Latin America.