Urban-Air Port to accelerate drone delivery infrastructure in Sweden

Urban-Air Port has part­nered with the City of Skelleft­eå, Skelleft­eå Air­port and Skan­s­ka in Swe­den in order to inte­grate infra­struc­ture for drone deliv­er­ies at Ham­marän­gen. 

North­volt, Europe’s largest elec­tric bat­tery pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty, is near­ing com­ple­tion and con­tribut­ing to a surge in employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in an indus­tri­al boost for the region, as well as an impor­tant step towards green tran­si­tion.

“With this increased growth we see a need for fast and sus­tain­able trans­port for com­pa­nies, pub­lic enter­pris­es and pri­vate indi­vid­u­als,” says Lars Hedqvist at Skelleft­eå Munic­i­pal­i­ty.

“By coor­di­nat­ing all modes of trans­port and inte­grat­ing air­borne goods trans­port in com­mu­ni­ty plan­ning, we hope to cre­ate a safe, robust, cost-effi­cient, sus­tain­able, acces­si­ble and future-ori­ent­ed logis­tics sys­tem through­out the munic­i­pal­i­ty. 

Infra­struc­ture on the ground is required in the form of a droneport, and one objec­tive is to devel­op the world’s first wood droneport from local forests and there­by demon­strate a sus­tain­able way of build­ing the infra­struc­ture of tomor­row. 

While the logis­tics site at Ham­marän­gen is under devel­op­ment, it is pos­si­ble to inte­grate drone deliv­er­ies into plan­ning from the begin­ning and there­by cre­ate a mul­ti­modal hub where all forms of trans­port are coor­di­nat­ed. 

“Drones are part of the sus­tain­able trans­port meth­ods of the future and the future is here faster than we think,” says David Nord­berg of Skan­s­ka.

“The con­di­tions are right for devel­op­ing the logis­tics and infra­struc­ture in the indus­tri­al area of Ham­marän­gen Skelleft­eå Södra, with the project sup­port­ed by Skan­ska’s Sus­tain­o­va­tion inno­va­tion oper­a­tions, where the col­lab­o­rat­ing par­ties will car­ry out a fea­si­bil­i­ty study to map the design, needs, per­mit process­es and costs asso­ci­at­ed with a droneport.”

Ricky Sand­hu, Founder and Exec­u­tive Chair­man of Urban-Air Port, adds: “We are delight­ed to be work­ing with this high­ly expe­ri­enced, mul­ti-dis­ci­plined con­sor­tium to bring Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty to Skelleft­eå and Swe­den. 

“Com­bin­ing the local author­i­ty, the air­port and a con­struc­tion com­pa­ny togeth­er with Urban-Air Port’s unique inno­v­a­tive ground infra­struc­ture for future AAM is a blue­print which can be repli­cat­ed around the world and our infra­struc­ture allows quick and easy adop­tion of this excit­ing new form of trans­porta­tion.”

Robert Lind­berg, CEO of Skelleft­eå Air­port, says: “By com­bin­ing the air­port’s capa­bil­i­ty with Skan­ska’s prop­er­ty devel­op­ment exper­tise, Urban-Air Port’s con­cept of ground infra­struc­ture for drone deliv­er­ies and Skelleft­eå munic­i­pal­i­ty’s invest­ments in the sus­tain­able soci­ety of the future, we have a part­ner­ship to cre­ate inno­v­a­tive solu­tions for future trans­porta­tion of air­borne goods.”