Evaluating Potential Carbon Emissions Operational Limits on Urban Air Mobility with Ridesharing

Urban air mobility (UAM) is a proposed multimodal transportation system in which aircraft, often envisioned as electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, fly between designated aerodromes within a metropolitan area, and ground-based transportation provides first- and last-mile connectivity to and from those aerodromes. If introducing UAM operations results in a substantial increase in trip-related carbon dioxide ([Formula: see text]) emissions, this could present a limit to the broad adoption of this mode of transport. This study estimates the mode choice and associated [Formula: see text] emissions of daily trips across the Chicago, IL, and Dallas, TX, metropolitan areas in several scenarios. Travelers select a mode of either a personally owned ground vehicle or UAM based on an effective cost metric. The analyzed scenarios include the impact of ridesharing in eVTOL aircraft along with various levels of electrical grid [Formula: see text] emissions intensity and electric ground vehicle (EV) adoption rates. Results indicate that ridesharing-enabled UAM operations can lead to reduced [Formula: see text] emissions compared to scenarios without UAM when EV adoption rates are less than 80%. Based on this, [Formula: see text] emissions do not appear likely to pose a significant limit on UAM operations with ridesharing.