Impact of autonomous ground vehicles on urban air mobility operations. Over the past few years the concept of utilizing advanced, small aircraft for on-demand transportation around metropolitan…

This federal contract award to the National Institute of Aerospace Associates (NIA), a non-profit research organization, involves a study on the "IMPACT OF AUTONOMOUS GROUND VEHICLES ON URBAN AIR MOBILITY OPERATIONS." The $118,415.65 cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order was issued by NASA's Langley Research Center, a civilian agency, to examine how the growth of autonomous cars may affect the demand for urban air mobility (UAM) services.

As a subcontractor, the Georgia Tech Research Corporation will provide insight into lessons learned from the public transit industry and analyze how autonomous ground vehicles could impact the viability of UAM. This contract work supports NASA's research into advanced air transportation concepts and emerging aerospace technologies. The award does not carry any set-aside designations.

Impact of autonomous ground vehicles on urban air mobility operations. Over the past few years the concept of utilizing advanced, small aircraft for on-demand transportation around metropolitan areas has been growing in popularity. Such novel transportation services for both people and goods has become known as urban air mobility (UAM). Advances in electric propulsion systems, automation/autonomy, manufacturing, and other technologies may converge to provide novel aircraft configurations that are affordable, safe, and quiet enough to operate as a practical means of daily transportation. In 2016, the ride hailing company uber released a white paper describing its plans to begin offering an urban air mobility (UAM) service with the novel electric vertical takeoff and landing (i.e., evtol) aircraft, and several manufacturers have since made public their plans of developing evtol aircraft to operate within such a system. The UAM concept shares some similarities with existing public transit systems. Specifically, most UAM concepts rely on passengers to change modes to complete a single trip i.e., a traveler will take a ground vehicle or walk to a takeoff location, exit the ground vehicle (if required), transfer into an air vehicle, then transfer again after a flight to a ground-based transportation mode. Such multi-mode trips are common today with transit systems with the air portion of the trip being replaced by a ground-based mode (or modes) using buses and/or trains. Therefore, the lessons learned from the transit world may be directly applicable to UAM operations, and could help increase public adoption of UAM transportation. For example, transit riders may prefer to have services, such as the dry cleaners, CO-located with a transit station so that they do not need to make an extra trip. Such previously evidenced behavior may imply that UAM operations should consider CO-locating these services at the air vehicle takeoff and landing locations. At the same time as the UAM concept is growing in popularity, there are rapid developments in automating ground vehicles. Companies such as waymo (and many others) are working to develop self-driving or autonomous cars that may one day be capable of safely and consistently transporting people without the need for human drivers. There are multiple visions for how autonomous ground vehicles will enter the marketplace. Some are considering personal ownership models similar to how many cars today are privately owned by the individuals who use them for transportation. Others are considering providing an on-demand service in which individuals request rides from a company who operates a fleet of vehicles. Such on-demand services are similar to existing ride-hailing services from the end user s perspective and may allow users to share rides or ride alone. Consumer preferences related to issues such as privacy while traveling and the ability to own and customize their vehicle will dictate which of these operational models becomes more dominant in the marketplace. Regardless of the operational model, autonomous cars may allow passengers to be productive while traveling (e.g., checking email or working in other ways) or to relax (e.g., read a book, watch a show), both of which may increase the willingness of individuals to travel by car around metropolitan areas and decrease the importance of having short commuting times. Additionally, once autonomous cars are a significant fraction of all ground traffic, they may reduce some existing problems, such as traffic jams, and increase the speeds at which ground vehicles can safely operate, which can reduce travel times by ground. Such changes in consumer preference or the manner in which ground vehicles operate may have an adverse impact on one of the primary benefits of the UAM concept the ability of UAM to save travelers time. Alternatively, the proliferation of autonomous ground vehicles may provide some benefits to UAM services.