Ohio Publishes First US Advanced Air Mobility Framework

Ohio is releas­ing the first US advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) frame­work, devel­oped by the Ohio Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion, through Dri­veO­hio, the state’s smart mobil­i­ty hub.

Ohio Gov­er­nor Mike DeWine said: “Ohio is a leader in the avi­a­tion indus­try, and AAM is an impor­tant indus­try for Ohio’s growth.”

AAM uses next-gen­er­a­tion tech­nolo­gies to move peo­ple and car­go between places not usu­al­ly served by sur­face trans­porta­tion or exist­ing avi­a­tion. Com­mon tech­nolo­gies include elec­tric propul­sion, short and ver­ti­cal takeoff/landing craft using advanced mate­ri­als, and the abil­i­ty to remote­ly or autonomous­ly pilot air­craft.

Ohio intends to employ advanced air mobil­i­ty for the safe, effi­cient, and equi­table trans­porta­tion of peo­ple and goods through­out the state. AAM increas­es modal­i­ty options, improv­ing trans­porta­tion resilien­cy and effi­cien­cy.

It can also increase safe­ty as new­er air­craft are designed with redun­dan­cy in mind. Ohio’s advanced air mobil­i­ty frame­work cap­tures the exist­ing advanced avi­a­tion ecosys­tem, Ohio spe­cif­ic activ­i­ties, route plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions, rec­om­men­da­tions for estab­lish­ing ver­ti­ports, and pro­vides a strate­gic map for Ohio to sup­port this emerg­ing indus­try.

Inno­va­teO­hio direc­tor Lt. Gov­er­nor Jon Husted con­tin­ued: “Across indus­tries, Ohio is thriv­ing in high­ly com­pet­i­tive glob­al mar­kets, notably in cut­ting-edge aero­space tech­nolo­gies.

“Not only does advanced air mobil­i­ty have huge poten­tial to improve the qual­i­ty of life for Ohioans but sup­port­ing its growth can posi­tion us as a leader in an incred­i­bly dynam­ic and inno­v­a­tive sec­tor of the econ­o­my, help­ing us com­pete and win on the world stage.”

Three cas­es have the poten­tial to dri­ve trans­porta­tion effi­cien­cy and sup­port a robust new aero­space indus­try in Ohio:
1. Car­go / Freight Deliv­ery: Trans­porta­tion of heavy car­go, freight, small pack­ages, and on-demand com­merce from or between air­ports, dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ters, man­u­fac­tur­ers, and retail­ers to con­sumers. Indus­tries such as logis­tics trans­porta­tion and e‑commerce can real­ize sig­nif­i­cant effi­cien­cies by lever­ag­ing advanced air­craft.
2. Region­al Air Mobil­i­ty: Reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled or on-demand trans­porta­tion between cities, more than 50–75 miles apart. Numer­ous stud­ies found that going by air using advanced avi­a­tion for short intra-region­al trips (from one city cen­ter to anoth­er near­by city cen­ter, or from city cen­ter to rur­al area) can save time.
3. Emer­gency Ser­vices: Advanced air mobil­i­ty vehi­cles can facil­i­tate an inno­v­a­tive med­ical ser­vices trans­porta­tion sys­tem, includ­ing emer­gency med­ical evac­u­a­tions, hos­pi­tal-to-hos­pi­tal patient and equip­ment trans­porta­tion, organ deliv­ery, and search-and-res­cue oper­a­tions.

The Ohio advanced air mobil­i­ty frame­work is the lat­est suc­cess in a series of major pol­i­cy and project wins the Dri­veO­hio team has pro­duced and is timed to sup­port the Nation­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Forum being held on August 22–23, 2022 in Spring­field, Ohio.

In April, Ohio host­ed its sec­ond annu­al Air Mobil­i­ty Sym­po­sium at Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty. In June 2021, Ohio expect­ed more than $13 bil­lion in eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty over the next 25 years if it took tar­get­ted steps to sup­port the growth of an advanced autonomous air­craft sec­tor.