Integrating Social and Economic Sustainability in Urban Air Mobility Network Planning

Urban air mobility (UAM) is an innovative concept with the potential to create numerous economic opportunities. However, the integration of UAM into existing urban environments presents significant challenges. Factors such as aircraft noise, community acceptance, and economic feasibility are primary concerns for investors, governments, and users. Recognizing the critical role of network and infrastructure design in a sustainable UAM system, this work focuses on enhancing UAM’s social and economic sustainability from a network planning perspective. Specifically, the authors plan the configurations of vertiports and flight corridors in a city by considering several key socioeconomic and environmental factors. The proposed methodology consists of social and economic factors identification, geospatial data integration, vertiport location selection, and flight corridor optimization. The methodology is applied in a detailed case study of the Austin, Texas, metropolitan area, in which the authors present and discuss a series of sustainable UAM network planning results across various cost-benefit scenarios.