Choosing Suitable Indicators for the Assessment of Urban Air Mobility: A Case Study of Upper Bavaria, Germany

Abstract

Technological advances are disrupting mobility patterns and transport technologies, both on the ground and in the air. The latter has been recently observed in the research community of urban air mobility (UAM). Research in this area has studied several areas of its implementation, such as vehicle concepts, infrastructure, transport modeling, or operational constraints. Few studies however have focused on evaluating this service as an alternative among existing transportation systems. This research presents an approach for the selection of indicators for a multi-criteria analysis for the assessment of UAM, in a case study of Upper Bavaria, Germany. A 5-stage approach is showcased including an expert assessment for the relevance and feasibility of indicators, based on two rating scales. A threshold for selection is presented, applied and validated for both scales. The results included a list of indicators for assessing the potentials of UAM integration to existing public transportation systems; the chosen indicators were then compared against existing ones for sustainable urban mobility. A high match between resulting indicators and previous ones further validate the results, and suggest that there is a need for an iterative approach in the assessment of disruptive transport technologies.