Urban Air Mobility

Urban mobility is a sector that touches on many things - automotive, micromobility, so much more. On Episode 15, sponsored by EIT Urban Mobility, we wanted to touch on a part of Urban mobility that's making some serious waves (or wind?) in the mobility industry - urban air mobility (UAM). Our host Brittany Atkins dove deep with expert guests Alexander Ahrens and Kshitija Desai on the topic - examining the current landscape of UAM, the start-up/consumer perspectives of the UAM development, and where the industry is headed.  We also discussed what companies are doing to support the UAM space, like EIT Urban Mobility's  special interest group on Urban Air Mobility. A lot of exciting news and hopes for the future were discussed, so settle in and get cozy and enjoy the episode.

This podcast is powered by Y-Mobility, a boutique tech consultancy aiming to help support the mobility industry in its transition to a software-defined architecture. 

Transcript

Brittany: 0:07

Hello and welcome to episode 15 of the conversations in the park podcast a place for meaningful discussions about mobility created by Y-mobility. I'm Brittany Atkins, your host and resident mobility enthusiast. Today we've brought together two amazing guests to discuss the ins and outs of urban air mobility. We want to examine everything that goes into it and the effects that come out. We're happy to once again be collaborating with the EIT urban mobility as our sponsor, and emphasize their work in the urban mobility sector through their studies and collaborations to support European cities in urban air mobility. So settle down, get comfy and let's get started. My first guest today is Kshitija, market intelligence and strategic business development expert at Skyroads. Hi, Kshitija, please do introduce yourself to our guests who may not be familiar with you.

Kshitija: 0:59

Hi, everyone. I'm Kshitija. I'm currently working at Skyroads as a market intelligence and strategic business development expert. Skyroads is a deep tech aviation company working on providing a solution for automated air traffic management for urban air mobility. Personally, I have a master's in mechanical engineering from Germany, and I'm very passionate about mobility solutions. Also currently a scholar at the female innovators and mobility programme 2022 across Europe, which is also co founded by EIt. At Skyroads, my focus is on researching on the latest trends in UAM. And communicating them to the product team identifying new business ideas and markets for urban air mobility. And I strongly believe that mobility of tomorrow has to be based on three pillars that are sustainability, accessibility and scalability.

Brittany: 1:54

That's such a lovely introduction. Thank you. We really look forward to hearing more from you. And no pressure Alexander but we also have Alexander Ahrens, CTO, and head of consulting services at allDots. So like I say, no pressure, but please do share a little bit more about yourself to our audience.

Alexander: 2:13

Hi, everybody. My name is Alex, I'm co founder head of consulting service with allDots we are consultancy and integrator focused on urban mobility that does include smaller drones and bigger, more passenger heavy vehicles such as the also publicly known air taxis or Open Air Mobility vehicles. We're based in Hamburg, Germany, and we are a consultancy focused on bringing together the minds and connecting people inside urban air mobility to create scalable solutions within specific branches of the industry and across all and other industries.

Brittany: 2:52

Thank you amazing. So, of course, a very first message is to say thank you so much for joining us on this podcast today, we really look forward to hearing more from the pair of you. As a starting point, I always like to think about some of the recent news surrounding the landscapes that you're working and living in. So this past summer, we've seen aeronautics and space company Airbus expanding its partnership with Munich Airport International to offer solutions to cities and regions globally to advanced mobility solutions. And last week, Kshitijas own Skyroads announces partnering with intermap technologies to help develop an automated airspace management and vehicle guidance system. So it's exciting to see so many new developments and yourselves, you know, included and part of those. For us pedestrians in the world, as kind of outside as the enthusiasts looking in, what are some of the recent developments and stories that really do have you excited? I'm going to as you're smirking at me. Kshitija, I'm going to come to you first, for anything in the news. That is exciting, exciting you

Kshitija: 4:02

indeed there is a lot of things happening in this in this space worldwide. A recent news that I heard about urban Air Mobility developments in Europe was that there were some flight tests in France at an airfield with some industrial players like a consortium of players and they simulated avoidance maneuvers in three different real world scenarios, real real cases. And they basically proved that urban air mobility can take off a flight safely and it is possible to integrate it within the cities within the city air spaces in a safe manner. So that's a piece of news that was exciting to me.

Brittany: 4:45

Yep, certainly. It's great to see that these I don't know developments, inventions, innovations and are more than, you know, just things we can expect to see in a Bond film. Right and it's maybe it will, you know, change the way we live and change the world we're a part of. And Alexander, how about for yourself, you know what news stories or developments really exciting you at the moment,

Alexander: 5:08

my biggest excitement comes from not so happy that the first place incident. But the pioneer in the United States Kitty Hawk who may or may have not started the whole urban Air Mobility air taxi thing, they were certainly one of the first in this sector has shut down their operations for their startup company and continue to invest their operations and their efforts into their joint venture with Boeing, which makes it for me as a consultant, quite, it's quite interesting that the industry is moving from this very fragmented, highly funded highly over valuated startup landscape into more sophisticated partnerships with traditional aviation companies, traditional players that do know how to build operate, maintain aircrafts for decades. So this is quite interesting news for me to see how this will turn out in the future.

Brittany: 6:08

Yeah, certainly. What are your thinkings on that in? How do you think that will change the course of progression?

Alexander: 6:16

I mean, it's from my point of view, it's a natural course of progression, since all the authorities and all the legislation is moving towards certification of those types of new aircrafts , in regards of noise pollution in regards of safety nets and security. And when it comes to certification, and not, particularly in aviation, but especially in aviation, those tend to take a lot of time, and they tend to take a lot of money, you can see you with the incidents that Boeing had with the, 737 Max, those can hit pretty substantially, the big aviation companies. And once it comes to certification of aircraft and type certification of aircraft, this is typically where North Star can handle it on their own. I think we will see a lot of those traditional aviation companies or traditional airplane manufacturers, partnering up with technology providers, a startup to force to bring in their experience and how to build up aircrafts that will be certified how to run certification programs, how to build up the infrastructure that is needed to certify an aircraft. And the startups will bring the information in how to build these new kinds of aircraft. So I think we will see in industry, we'll see a lot of those strategic joint ventures form up or even strengthen up over time. And then last, let's say the next year up to 2025.

Brittany: 7:47

Thank you, Alex. And continuing our theme of startups, Kshitija What are some of the recent trends or developments you're seeing from the startup landscape in the urban air mobility space?

Kshitija: 7:58

Definitely in the last few years, I think it majorly in the last three to four years, there has been a lot of investment into the startups because they are novel, they have novel aircraft designs. A number of companies who are startups have also announced that they would be launching passenger air mobility services worldwide. Some examples could be volocopter, I'm planning to launch services in Singapore EHang in Austria, there's vertical aerospace in London and Joby aviation in the US, Lilium in Munich. So all of these are startups. And I think startups are now on the forefront because they have a potential to make a disruption. And I, I certainly agree with Alexander that this is now going to lead to potential strategic partnerships with bigger companies, because the bigger companies have the potential to make the certification happen, like to pour in money for the certification processes. So the the innovative and disruptive ideas from startups, combined with the corporates and the other bigger companies of this aviation world could certainly lead to a great UAM future.

Brittany: 9:18

That's brilliant to hear. Thank you. And moving on from startups for the moment wanted to bring us to talk a little about the goals coming from the EIT urban mobility study, which we spoke a little about before recording this podcast and what opportunities this could create for the industry what doors this may open. So yeah, I can I can see you nodding along Kshitija so I might take you to that question first if that's okay, please.

Kshitija: 9:44

So we conducted the study with the aim to understand the perspective and readiness of the European cities and other major stakeholders who would play a vital role in the implementation of this form of mobility especially in Europe. It is evident that some of this cities like Hamburg and Helsinki, are now at the forefront. And they're quite excited to welcome urban air mobility. While some of the cities are still skeptical, some of them would rather like to take a step back and watch what happens before they actively promise something. Usually, the cities have a control over their roads. As we see now they have a dedicated traffic management department, which controls the the city road traffic. Now, when it comes to having operations in their urban air spaces, the city is basically also would like to have a say, or some form of control, which is evident from this study. Most of the cities are currently relying on the expertise of today's aviation authorities. And through this study, we could also see that there is a gap in between the communication between the aviation authorities and the city regulatory authorities. So one major takeaway from this study is that this gap basically has to be closed, so that we can progress towards implementing UAM within the cities.

Brittany: 11:14

Thank you, Andy, I see you nodding along. Aleksandr, do you have any additional points to add on opportunities or goals? Or, you know, what you see? That's really interesting coming from the study?

Alexander: 11:25

Yeah, sure. Our studies goal has not been to yet have another study on social acceptance. There are a lot of studies out there and most recently published one by the European [] agency, which was quite good to read. We aimed that we bring in together the piece of advice we gathered from the work at the forefront with us with the consulting partners to go up with the EIT urban air mobility Special Interest Group, which is a group formed by EIT urban mobility that contains of industry partners, startups, City representatives, policymakers. So a bunch of interesting people working together on the topics of mobility. And we aim that we offer some guidance for the cities and for the, for the people interested in implementing urban air mobility, and what areas they have to look at and what areas they need to think about. And those are typically not how to create the best flying car, or taxi structure. It's rather than, okay, we need to build up some infrastructure within the city. How does that work? We're talking about urban environments, we're talking about space that is ever shrinking. And now, there isn't enough space for all the people living inside the city center. And now we want to build up a second aviation infrastructure within the cities, which takes up some time, okay. And they also has released some guidelines on how to construct Vertie ports and open those, those types of lending sites were open and mobility aircrafts. And they tend to be at the same size not Yes, might be a little bit bigger than the typical helicopter landing pad size, which is quite substantial urban space, manufacturing, work on desk and security buildings and all that stuff that is located with going through security at an airport, which will be in some sort for Inner City Airport as well. You were talking about a lot of urban space that needs to be located somewhere. And we try to help the city's foster in this this kind of discussions because right now the industry is focused on building technology in solving the problem of the flying car, which on the technology side we already did now we need to solve the problem how to operate flying cars. And this is where the industry will look back to the policymakers will look back to the municipalities will look back to the city centers and say okay, let's give us the space and build us the roads in the sky as Kshitija said, and for the most part of the especially German cities, but most central European cities they are little less personnel to keep the bus stops up and running now they want to cities to to create vertiports, there isn't something that the city's needs to keep in mind

Brittany: 14:22

of Fantastic, thank you. It's quite exciting thinking about how the future could look. The pair of you touched a little on kind of social acceptance and perspectives take into consideration and you know, skepticism of cities. So let's touch a little on how the you know, every day consumer and individual has been taken into consideration when it comes to the actual application of urban air mobility initiatives. So Kshitija could I start with you on any thoughts on how we've considered consumers and what kind of things we are considering about them?

Kshitija: 15:00

yes. So it's clear that urban air mobility will only be enabled by the convergence of several public perception factors, such as community community acceptance and safety. Although numerous societal concerns have been raised about affordability, safety privacy, people still do believe that UAM has quite a lot of potential to offer or improve services that we currently have in a local environment, and also reduce the carbon footprint through such services. So they believe that UAM can be beneficial for certain services like emergency of emergency services, medical goods delivery, even passenger mobility services, like airport shuttles or connection to remote areas. As Alexander mentioned, Iasa, has also published a study last year on the public acceptance of UAM. Also, it also concluded that citizens initially are spontaneously liking the field of urban Air Mobility, they find it quite interesting. And it is exciting for them that they can fly and see the cities from a different perspective. Now, the main benefits are mostly faster, cleaner and extended connectivity that they see. And even though they have some concerns regarding affordability of these services, or they have privacy issues, they in general, look at it from a positive point of view, I think the real challenges would come when the services are actually implemented. And at that point, we'll have to see how the community is using the services and how well the promised technologies working for them. community backlash could be definitely disastrous to the whole industry. And hence, I think, industry must systematically consider the interests of public in these developments, also cities and Iasa, for example, is taking steps towards considering the public perception while implementing such a technology. EU has been also considerate about the citizens while preparing the regulatory framework. As mentioned earlier, from the from the city, from the citizens survey itself, it is clear that they want to know what is in the minds of their citizens, and how willing are they to adopt these services? So yeah, I think that, in general, this, the the citizens are positive about it, but it is also super important that the EU, and in general, all the technology providers take into consideration what the what the customers really need. So it has to be customer centric

Brittany: 17:52

Yeah. Fantastic. And, Alexandre, I know you've got a kind of background and real expertise in driving an equitable and sustainable urban Air Mobility future. Are there any thoughts from you on what do we have to take into consideration to make sure whatever developments are inclusive and you know, for for the good of the planet and people

Alexander: 18:15

we need to take into consideration that urban air mobility is not the one thing that is the passenger in new air vehicle that is flying electric over the cities transporting two to six passengers. This is something on the urban Air Mobility roadmap on the far end, that we need to focus on piloting stages, we need to focus on giving the technology even if it's the drone that is transporting medical goods from one hospital to another hospital to save valuable time, and therefore save lives inside the hospitals, we need to give them the same space, not in the air, but virtually in the public acceptance as the big companies trying to bring out the next flying car. There will be at the end of the lifecycle and at the end of the roadmap, which is on the newer industry projections by 2025 - 2030. But yet, the technology of the small vehicles such as drones, such as smaller cargo vehicles, are far more mature than everything that needs to carry the person. And once we focus on those as an enabler for the bigger inventions, and for the bigger innovations coming to the whole sector, they can create actual traceable steps towards flying future and give the public some some insights on how this might look like on a smaller scale. And how this will look like later down the roadmap.

Brittany: 19:50

Thank you. And I want to ask us about a little more on on potential skepticisms because I always appreciate in these conversations. We're in the bubble of being very Pro change and pro innovation and the future of mobility is the way forward. And it's important to remind ourselves that there are other opinions and perspectives outside of this bubble that we find ourselves in. So what are some of the obstacles when it comes to negative consumer perspectives, or skepticisms? That we have to overcome? Strategically I'll pose that question to you first place,

Kshitija: 20:26

the major problems for this industry to grow. The major one is the regulatory setup, stemming from the fact that there is not yet a regulatory framework for various aspects like certification pilot licensing, for these vehicles, the operation of autonomous air vehicles, ground infrastructure, air traffic management, there is no clear clause on how the insurances would work in case of accidents. So all of this formulation needs time. And that's one of the biggest, it's not a huge hurdle. But it's like slowing down the process of implementing urban air mobility. This is the lack of regulatory framework is also creating a challenge for the designers and developers, because they do not have a standard to use as a guide for the certification process. And secondly, even if there are a lot of developments happening on the vehicle side, there won't be any real operations. Until there is a right there is the right infrastructure to operate. So I think, working on the operational infrastructure on Alexander already mentioned this point that we need to now start focusing more on how do we develop the operational infrastructure? That's the physical infrastructure, like vertiports and also the invisible digital infrastructure, like the air traffic management in the air

Brittany: 21:51

Thank you. And well, while we're on the theme of obstacles and hurdles, what are the additional obstacles do you see perhaps for startups? And are there any potential solutions or strategies in mind or your, you know, seeing at play, that are helping combat those challenges?

Kshitija: 22:10

So just continuing what I said last time, UAM implementation requires a lot of cooperation in between the regulators and agencies at every level, from national level to the local level. And even though there is now a gap in between the civil aviation authorities and the cities, it needs to somehow be filled up through communication, and that's going to help the startups like ours quite a lot, because when there are regulations, we can work on certain solutions, which are acceptable, and which leads to more investment in such a technology. Currently, one of the major problems that startups in this field face is a lack of investment. And it's definitely because the investors don't know how these regulations would evolve over the period of time. And if our solution that we are currently working on will be at all feasible in the future, depending on what will be the framework. So I would say investment is also one of the major challenges that the startups are facing.

Brittany: 23:19

Thank you. And Alex, do you have anything to add on obstacles to seeing or you know, potential solutions and strategies that play to those challenges,

Alexander: 23:28

just adding up to the financing part of what Kshitija just said, most of the companies in the field are privately funded, many of them via venture capital, which tend to look at short term investment times and tend to look at how to get their, their money back and how to get an meaningful exit out of the company. This is fine for tech companies who are doing pretty fast time to market products working in environments where they can release the product pretty fast and cash in pretty fast. This is not not the way aviation works, typically, especially in inside a new bubble of aviation in Open Air Mobility aviation. And this is most certainly not how the infrastructure projects have been developed, because there was a long time projects and an airport doesn't have an return of investment rate of two years. They got their money back in 20 to 30 years. It's a good investment. But yet those those classic infrastructure projects are on nobody's desk from the classic infrastructure project financing world. So the all the banks and all the classic investors who are doing big building projects, I'm not touching base with these kinds of new opportunities. The first world's first on the road was one of those areas in the world that are to be considered really thinking about implement Think about my mobility and infrastructure way, Saudi Arabia which the neem city, okay, the city isn't built yet. So they can build in urban Air Mobility into this model city and they can build in airplanes. But those are pretty big investment numbers. Even they are not quite sure how they can implement it. So yeah, money in terms of financing value, not for the technology itself. But for the allocated technologies, allocated services. Everything that needs to be in place for the technology to do their work is unclear then funding for the technology itself. And the biggest obstacles that we tend to focus on passenger drones, passenger aircrafts only and strategic said, we have this unclear and rather complex way of certification and operating right now, we have a far less complex way of making room and mobility in terms of cargo drones in terms of smaller aircrafts reality. And one of the biggest obstacles that I see is that we tend to look at the Northstar, big self flying car that transports a lot of people into the city center inside London or inside New York City. And we do not focus on all the good steps and all the necessary use cases we can encounter. And we can we can solve even today with today's Reagan's registration and today's regulation down the road, the DoD talking about the success of status made into these smaller fields for medical services for for cargo services, and all that stuff.

Brittany: 26:41

Thank you. I feel like you've brought us to a very natural close and nice summary. And I'd like to ensure that we finish these podcasts with some words of optimism for the future of ability. And because that's, you know, how you got to live the world and life is tough. So we've got to keep thinking and moving in a positive direction. So the final question I'd like to ask the pair of you is, for one, you know, one personal hope for the future of urban air mobility. So a closing remark on what do you what do you hope the future of urban air mobility to look like? So Kshitija can I ask you that question or invitation for final remark first, please?

Kshitija: 27:27

Yes, so I believe UAM is super exciting, and I'm personally very passionate about it. But we need to understand that urban Air Mobility is only an element. It's not only an element of aviation, and mobility, but it is also predominantly about planning and urban development. UAM will certainly feature in the formation of urban innovation and sustainable transition strategies for cities. I would say that, yes, people are looking forward to this mode of transportation, and it will definitely help to make the city transportation smarter. But it will remain one component of a much larger transportation network for a smart city. This means that the usage of the data or the vehicle inventory will need to be incorporated, modeled and monitored on a shared digital platform, which will also include other forms of transportation, and this will define a smart city mobility ecosystem.

Brittany: 28:36

Amazing. Thank you. And Alex same question yourself, please a hope for the future of urban mobility.

Alexander: 28:44

The aviation industry has always been an industry that operates in a highly regulated field. Thus, the industry and all the players in the industry came together for a great level of cooperation, whether it's the aircraft manufacturers, Boeing, Airbus, or the others or the airline carriers on the ground personnel, the airport's flights, flight management stuff, everybody came together and worked on a collaborative way. And my hope for the urban Air Mobility sector is that we copy this behavior from the old creation industry part. So bring together not only the startups that are doing the technology work and going for test flights, and then that's about it because their business is developing technology. bring together the cities bring together the maths and pilates and the actual people that needs to use their services and also bring in the people that will offer their services. Those will not be the city those will not be the aircraft manufacturer. Those will be Airlines on use some sorts of new airlines like Uber elevate or lyft air car, you name it. There are dozens of concepts out there, bringing them all together and demonstrate the usage and the ease of use of using those services to the public, not only focusing on the super rich but creating a valuable and sustainable mode of transportation for most of the people.

Brittany: 30:15

Amazing. Thank you, Alex, I want to be one of those people. So please continue to do all of the meaningful work that you are in your fields so I can enjoy these services. So I'd like to finish with a big thank you Kshitija, Alex for your time, everything you've shared today, if our listeners would like to get in touch with a pair of view, how best can they reach you Kshitija asked you that question. First, please.

Kshitija: 30:39

I would be more than happy to connect to people who would like to more like to know more about urban air mobility and what Skyroads is doing in order to provide safer operations in the air. And you can always reach out to me via email. My email addresses is Kshitija, that's K-S-H-I-T-I-J-A dot Desai, D-E-S-A-I @ skyroads.com.(kshitija.desai@skyroads.com)

Brittany: 31:06

Perfect. Thank you, you and yourself, Alex for any fans listening, how can they get in touch?

Alexander: 31:11

I think the easiest way will be via LinkedIn. Just have a look at Alexandra Ahrens via LinkedIn or drop me an email at alexander@alldot.solutions

Brittany: 31:20

And finally a big thank you to the EIT urban mobility for sponsoring today's episode and the Y-Mobility team for making today possible. If you're curious about more of the work EIT urban mobility has done for the urban Air Mobility sector, such as their special interest group on urban Air Mobility, or their urban Air Mobility Plaza accelerator programme. Be sure to check out their LinkedIn at EIT urban mobility and website at eiturbanmobility.eu So please do enjoy the rest of your days and we look forward to seeing you tune in to future episodes.