AECOM and Ferrovial to design vertiport infrastructure for eVTOL aircraft in Florida

AECOM, one of the world’s lead­ing infra­struc­ture con­sult­ing firms, will work with Fer­rovial to design a net­work of ver­ti­ports in the USA, which will con­nect strate­gic loca­tions in some of Flori­da’s major cities.

Fer­rovial is part­ner­ing with Ger­man start­up Lil­i­um to devel­op this net­work, and its work with AECOM will enable a high-speed, envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly, and afford­able trans­port sys­tem con­nect­ing state cities in more con­ve­nient ways.

No fur­ther details have been revealed about this net­work so far, but an announce­ment about the first loca­tion in Flori­da is expect­ed soon.

Elis­a­beth Bernitt, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent and Man­ag­ing Prin­ci­pal with AECOM’s Build­ings + Places busi­ness, said: “We are excit­ed to work with Fer­rovial on the design of this ver­ti­port net­work that exem­pli­fies the future of air mobil­i­ty. It is impor­tant for us that the design of the ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture reflects the inno­v­a­tive nature of the eVTOL crafts while cre­at­ing a warm, wel­com­ing envi­ron­ment.

“By incor­po­rat­ing flex­i­ble and mod­u­lar ele­ments our part­ners will be able to scale the ver­ti­ports with growth, per­mit­ting an effi­cient space that allows for future inno­va­tion while empha­siz­ing the pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence.”

Ver­ti­ports are a key com­po­nent in the eVTOL air­craft ecosys­tem, by pro­vid­ing the infra­struc­ture need­ed for land­ing, recharg­ing, and depar­ture.

As the eVTOL air­craft mar­ket con­tin­ues to make great strides, ground infra­struc­ture is wide­ly con­sid­ered by many in the indus­try to be the secret bot­tle­neck.

With some com­pa­nies expect­ing to launch their first com­mer­cial ser­vices as ear­ly as 2023/2024, infra­struc­ture is a part of the ecosys­tem which needs to be high on the agen­da before this hap­pens — so the indus­try can enable the safe oper­a­tion of eVTOL ser­vices in cities across the world.

Luis Alvar­gon­za­lez, Fer­rovial Air­ports Cor­po­rate Devel­op­ment Direc­tor, added: “We are very hap­py to con­tin­ue our long-last­ing part­ner­ship with AECOM and join forces again in our vision to devel­op sus­tain­able infra­struc­ture. AECOM’s design capa­bil­i­ties in mobil­i­ty solu­tions will help us to trans­form this rev­o­lu­tion­ary con­cept into a life-chang­ing expe­ri­ence for the ver­ti­ports users.”

As well as its part­ner­ship with Lil­i­um, Fer­rovial recent­ly announced the launch of a project to devel­op a 20-strong net­work of inter­con­nect­ed ver­ti­ports in Spain. As it is in its ini­tial stages, a loca­tion and pre­dict­ed time­line has­n’t yet been dis­closed.