The term 'urban air mobility' (UAM) is used to describe new mobility concepts and the largescale expansion of urban mobility into the air. The aim is to create a safe, environmentally friendly and efficient transport system and to relieve congested infrastructure, especially in fast-growing urban areas. Automated flying objects like VTOLs (electric vertical take-off and landing) or air taxis will transport passengers (urban air mobility) and cargo drones or uncrewed aircraft systems (UASs) will transport freight (urban air logistics) at low altitudes. What seemed like a remote possibility a few years ago is now a near reality as mobility shifts into the 'third dimension' and urban airspace becomes the new frontier of development.
A reliable legal framework is crucial for the successful economic development and implementation of the entire UAM market. This needs to include standards for technological certifications and approvals to ensure the safety of the required infrastructure and regulation of the urban (uncrewed) air mobility market.
The Urban Air Mobility market
Urban air mobility is (rightly) considered a market with great potential. By 2030, approximately five billion people (around 60% of the world's population) are expected to live in cities and urban regions. Inevitably, this will create immense infrastructure challenges.
According to businesswire 2023, the global urban air mobility will grow from around USD 2 billion in 2021 at a CAGR of 30.2% from 2022 to 2031. By 2031, the market is expected to reach around USD 31 billion. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) predicts the EU will become the market leader with a 31% share of the global market. The consulting firm Roland Berger assumes that the number of drones used as air taxis, airport shuttles and as part of inner-city flight services will grow exponentially in the next few years to almost 160,000 autonomous electric drones worldwide by 2050, with an associated annual turnover of almost USD 90 billion. This makes the market attractive to investors. The auditing and consulting firm Deloitte also includes freight and commercial intercity services (advanced air mobility or AAM) in its market forecast and predicts that the US market for AAM could reach a volume of USD 115 billion by 2035.
Market participants and required infrastructure
In addition to traditional global aviation businesses like Airbus and Boeing, a large number of start-ups (some of them very small) is working worldwide on the implementation of UAM concepts. These include Volocopter, Lilium, EHang and Joby Aviation. Small or not, interest from the public and investors is growing: AHK France gave an award to Volocopter in February 2023 for its innovative UAM concept, and electric air taxis are to be used at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, albeit not for commercial purposes but for show flights.
UAM can only realise its full potential if it is integrated into existing urban mobility. This requires suitable infrastructure and corresponding interfaces. The airspace structure must be adapted to the new developments. In particular, suitable ground infrastructure must be designed and take-off and landing zones created. Strategic partners which provide the necessary infrastructure, in this case vertiports, are also crucial for the use of air taxis. UAM isn't just about the transportation vehicles themselves though. A variety of stakeholders will be involved including:
- drone operators who use drones to provide services or transport goods or people
- manufacturers of the drone hardware and manufacturers of other payloads for installation in drones, eg for filming, inspection, cargo, surveillance or measurement purposes
- platform technology providers developing equipment and software systems for communication, flight control, situational awareness or to enable autonomous operation
- dealers who sell or rent ready-made drones to third party companies
- ground infrastructure operators such as vertiports and airports, air traffic management providers (eg providers of air traffic control services, U-space services or shared information services), and
- telecommunications infrastructure providers, navigation and surveillance infrastructure providers.
What laws does the EU have and what does it need?
Practical and legal challenges
There are a number of legal hurdles to be overcome if the UAM market is to reach its full potential:
- greater relief for urban road traffic inevitably goes hand in hand with increased urban airspace pollution so environmental legislation will be needed
- certifications and clear regulations for traffic in the airspace above cities must ensure safety and that there is no disruption of or danger to commercial air traffic
- part of the safety issue is that despite technological progress, the mobile network is not efficient enough to guarantee the seamless radio communication essential to a nationwide (or global) infrastructure network of uncrewed, autonomous drones
- infrastructure hurdles exist due to the lack of charging stations, landing strips, no-fly zones, no-fly times and maintenance facilities
- error mode management programmes for error and accident prevention must be further developed together with IT solutions to prevent the hacking of drones and accidents in general.
In an ideal world, we'd have a comprehensive legal framework for UAM. Creating global standards is probably overly ambitions but, as with a national space law, a national UAM law would foster economic success of the industry with legal certainty encouraging local investment. There is also a competitive advantage to being an early global leader in regulating UAM. Any comprehensive legal framework should include standards for technological certifications and approvals, for the security of the required infrastructure, and should be coupled with measures to regulate the UAM market. At the moment, we are some way off this position with fragmented legislation covering some of these areas.
Drones
Following the European Commission’s 2015 Aviation Strategy, the EU developed a comprehensive regulatory framework for drones. Since 2018, all drones, regardless of their weight, are subject to harmonised safety rules. To ensure safe drone operations, the Commission also adopted several regulations regarding the air traffic management system for drones. These include Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/947 and Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/945, which set out detailed rules and procedures for the operation of uncrewed aircraft and established requirements for the design and manufacture of uncrewed aircraft systems.
The European Union published a new drone strategy (Drone Strategy 2.0) in November 2022, presenting a plan for a European drone market. By 2030, deliveries of medicine, emergency services and innovative air mobility services (air taxis) with (autonomous) drones should be part of everyday life in Europe. The Strategy contains 19 operational, technical and financial flagship actions. The aim is to create a suitable legal and commercial environment for airspace, a market for drones, and to pave the way for large-scale commercial flight operations.
Certification
Regulations for certification and, in particular, the definition of requirements and regulations for type certification are set down by the EASA. In June 2022, EASA was the first agency worldwide to publish draft rules for the operation of air taxis in cities. The draft covers airworthiness, flight operations, flight crew licensing and air traffic regulations. The proposals clarify the basic certification path that may apply to developers in Europe for VTOLs in the future. This is a first mover advantage with real effects as is demonstrated by the fact that the UK has already adopted the regulations proposed by EASA and is currently consulting on a further framework (as we discuss here).
In April 2024 the European Commission adopted a set of measures, based on the EASA regulatory proposals published in Opinion No 03/2023 in August 2023, paving the way for the launch of air taxi services and other innovative drone uses. The situation is different, however, for autonomous, ie pilotless personal air vehicles (PAV) in relation to which the development of certification regulations is still pending.
Standardisation of infrastructure and 'U-space'
With regard to the standardisation of infrastructure requirements (whether for vertiports or air traffic control), the Commission adopted the 'U-space package' in mid-2021. U-space ('U' stands for uncrewed services) is a European system developed for the management of drone traffic. The package includes three Regulations that together are intended to create the conditions for both drones and crewed aircraft to operate safely in the part of the airspace designated as U-space. The new rules are primarily intended to facilitate more complex and longer missions, particularly in low and densely populated airspace and beyond the visual range of the remote pilot. The EU rules came into force on 26 January 2023. Member States can now designate a specified airspace as U-space in which mandatory services must be provided. A German U-Space law has been overdue ever since. The overall objective is to create a competitive market with fair access for UAS operators.
Vertiports
The EASA published specifications for the construction of vertiports in March 2022. The next step is to develop a complete legal framework for the construction and certification of vertiports as well as for the operation and supervision of operators.
Framework conditions in Germany
With the aim of creating reliable regulatory conditions, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure (BMVI) adopted a Memorandum of Understanding with the Urban Air Mobility model cities of Aachen, Hamburg, Ingolstadt and Northern Hesse in June 2021 to implement and further develop innovative drone technology. The innovation network is intended to provide infrastructure and regulatory solutions through best-practice examples and to test consumer attitudes.
The EU’s UAM initiative provided funding of EUR 29m for new ideas and project outlines to support research and testing related to UAM. Since 2021, the BMVI has continued this funding and provided around EUR 15m for the Innovative Air Mobility initiative up to 2023. The Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport has also established a digital platform for uncrewed aviation. The Digital Platform for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (dipul) provides all safety-relevant and legal information on the use of drones in Germany.
Outlook
It remains to be seen how regulation of the UAM market will develop. Europe has legal, technical and infrastructure opportunities which can help it succeed in the field of UAM, but it lags considerably behind especially Asia and the Middle East. This gap will need to close if the EU wants to accelerate technical and economic development. Market players should keep a close watch on the prevailing and developing legal framework governing UAM to make the most of business opportunities in the face of changing requirements.
