New global trade association to help bring air taxis and drones into cities and rural environments

A new glob­al trade asso­ci­a­tion has been set up to sup­port city author­i­ties and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties assess, man­age and adopt com­plex unmanned air sys­tem (UAS) ser­vices, such as air taxis and drones.

The Civic Air Trans­port Asso­ci­a­tion (CIVATA­glob­al) is the glob­al trade asso­ci­a­tion of the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) and Urban Air Mobil­i­ty (UAM) sec­tors, and aims to cre­ate a knowl­edge trans­fer com­mu­ni­ty of gov­ern­ing bod­ies and the avi­a­tion indus­try.

Andrew Charl­ton, CIVATA­glob­al’s Direc­tor Gen­er­al, said: “Bring­ing togeth­er cities and indus­tries in a sin­gle glob­al com­mu­ni­ty,
CIVATA­glob­al has an ambi­tious work pro­gramme so that from day one, mem­bers will be engaged in pre­sent­ing a com­mon voice to reg­u­la­tors and pol­i­cy mak­ers, devel­op­ing guid­ance mate­r­i­al, organ­is­ing events and iden­ti­fy­ing and pro­mul­gat­ing best-prac­tice pro­ce­dures in areas such as com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion.”

For cities, towns and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, CIVATA­glob­al says its can ‘pro­vide expert advice and guid­ance in the devel­op­ment of drone and UAM oper­a­tions, through access to spe­cial­ists and col­leagues who have real world expe­ri­ences of set­ting-up UAS oper­a­tions.’

It can also rep­re­sent local author­i­ties at nation­al and inter­na­tion­al forums for reg­u­la­tors and stan­dards set­ting, while pro­vid­ing mem­bers with a wide access to mate­ri­als and intel­li­gence and help­ing to export niche exper­tise, in areas such as train­ing and con­sul­tan­cy to a glob­al audi­ence.

While for the avi­a­tion indus­try, CIVATA­glob­al will pro­vide direct access to deci­sion mak­ers in local author­i­ties for decid­ing on the imple­men­ta­tion of UAS pro­grammes, pro­vide an indus­try voice at reg­u­la­to­ry and stan­dard set­ting bod­ies and high­light capa­bil­i­ties via the CIVATA­glob­al UAM indus­try data­base and mem­ber events. It will also work with local author­i­ties, reg­u­la­tors and com­mu­ni­ties to iden­ti­fy ear­ly obsta­cles to devel­op­ing oper­a­tions and find­ing solu­tions.

Charl­ton added: “Cities and com­mu­ni­ties around the world have seen the ben­e­fits these new tech­nolo­gies can deliv­er – it is vital that these expe­ri­ences are built-upon now rather than dis­si­pate so we can devel­op more com­plex drone deliv­ery and first-respon­der oper­a­tions while paving the way for future air taxi flights.

“There is an urgent need, now, for local gov­ern­ment and indus­try to start work­ing togeth­er, to learn from each oth­er and to engage with com­mu­ni­ties and reg­u­la­tors world­wide to ensure the indus­try devel­ops in a safe, cost-effec­tive and ben­e­fi­cial way, with the sup­port of the com­mu­ni­ties it will serve.”

For more infor­ma­tion about CIVATA­glob­al, email Col­in Mar­tin at colin.martin@civataglobal.org or Toby Wand at toby.wand@civataglobal.org

Alter­na­tive­ly, vis­it www.civataglobal.org or call the mem­ber­ship office on +44 (0)1293 851869