Project to explore idea of eVTOL air taxi services in South West of UK awarded government grant funding

A con­sor­tium led by Atkins and involv­ing Ver­ti­cal Aero­space and Sky­ports has secured an indus­tri­al research grant from the UK Gov­ern­ment to look at the fea­si­bil­i­ty of an eVTOL air taxi ser­vice in the South West region. A tri­al could begin as ear­ly as 2023.

The £2.5 mil­lion project has secured par­tial fund­ing through the Future of Flight Chal­lenge, which was cre­at­ed to find inno­v­a­tive meth­ods of achiev­ing green­er flight, find­ing new ways to trav­el, increas­ing mobil­i­ty, improv­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty and reduc­ing con­ges­tion.

Expect­ed to take 18 months, it will com­prise an assess­ment of the demand for air taxi ser­vices in the South West — which includes cities and towns such as Bris­tol, Chel­tenham, Glouces­ter, Exeter, Ply­mouth and Swin­don. While the fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies and sub­se­quent tri­als will be based in this area of the UK, the project will also con­sid­er scal­a­bil­i­ty and appli­ca­tion in oth­er cities.

James Rich­mond, Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Lead at Atkins, said: “As we look to the future of trav­el, it’s now more impor­tant than ever that we begin explor­ing more sus­tain­able meth­ods of trans­port with­in our increas­ing­ly pop­u­lat­ed cities.

“Bring­ing togeth­er the expe­ri­ence and exper­tise from across the con­sor­tium, we’re excit­ed to begin devel­op­ing a ful­ly inte­grat­ed sys­tem con­cept, using the lat­est dig­i­tal inno­va­tions. This an impor­tant and tan­gi­ble step towards mak­ing Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty a real­i­ty, and by demon­strat­ing that we can pro­vide a case for air taxis, we could begin tri­alling these ser­vices as ear­ly as 2023.”

The project will also assess the devel­op­ment of use cas­es for the tech­nol­o­gy; and an eval­u­a­tion of the inte­gra­tion and impact on the wider trans­porta­tion net­work, includ­ing the region’s air­ports, as well as the ben­e­fits to cities and res­i­dents.

It will also estab­lish viable mar­kets and busi­ness­es cas­es for these ser­vices and seek to under­stand pub­lic per­cep­tions and atti­tudes towards eVTOL air­craft. These activ­i­ties aim to cul­mi­nate in a series of full-sys­tem demon­stra­tions in live air­space across the region.

Atkins, which is one of the world’s most respect­ed design, engi­neer­ing and project man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cies, will man­age the project and pro­vide whole-sys­tem enter­prise archi­tec­ture, devel­op­ing safe­ty cas­es and cre­at­ing process­es for secure pas­sen­ger iden­ti­fi­ca­tion man­age­ment.

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, the Bris­tol-based elec­tric air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er, will explore vehi­cle inte­gra­tion using their eVTOL air taxi. Sky­ports will be respon­si­ble for design, devel­op­ment, oper­a­tion and air­port inte­gra­tion of the phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture to enable safe and effi­cient air taxi ser­vices.

Vic Ter­ry, Head of Dig­i­tal Sys­tems at Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “At Ver­ti­cal, our ulti­mate aim is to make air trav­el green and acces­si­ble to every­one. This is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring the con­sor­tiums’ prod­ucts and ser­vices togeth­er, show­cas­ing that air taxis are not reserved for sci­ence fic­tion but achiev­able to ben­e­fit both our cities and econ­o­my in the UK and around the world.”

Dun­can Walk­er, CEO of Sky­ports, added: “We are focused on deploy­ing ful­ly func­tion­al ver­ti­ports quick­ly and at scale to enable com­mer­cial air taxi ser­vices in the UK and inter­na­tion­al­ly. Ear­ly align­ment between the infra­struc­ture and tech­nolo­gies is essen­tial to the growth and prac­ti­cal via­bil­i­ty of this emerg­ing indus­try which this excit­ing project will help achieve.”

Oth­er con­sor­tium mem­bers include Alti­tude Angel and NATS, which will be inves­ti­gat­ing uni­fied traf­fic man­age­ment solu­tions and the inte­gra­tion of con­ven­tion­al air traf­fic con­trol.

Cran­field Uni­ver­si­ty will lead on the com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems required to enable flight, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in an urban envi­ron­ment. Lon­don-based IT com­pa­ny Neu­ron will focus on inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty to enable safe and effi­cient pas­sen­ger move­ment.

One of the British Government’s inno­va­tion agen­cies, Con­nect­ed Places Cat­a­pult, will lead the research into pub­lic per­cep­tion of air taxis, the ways this method of trav­el would be used, and the expect­ed demand on AAM as a ser­vice.

The West of Eng­land Com­bined Author­i­ty (WECA), offers the back­ing of a region­al author­i­ty and will help ensure plans align with the Joint Local Trans­port Plan, and fos­ter cross-sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion between the project and the likes of the Future Trans­port Zone and 5G devel­op­ments.

Tim Bowles, West of Eng­land May­or, said: “I want to bring the jobs of the future to the West of Eng­land and get our region mov­ing. This air taxi tri­al brings both those ambi­tions togeth­er and is a sig­nif­i­cant step in cement­ing the UK and the West of Eng­land as lead­ers in air taxis.

“Doing things dif­fer­ent­ly is in our region’s DNA and I’m proud we are once again lead­ing the way on yet anoth­er excit­ing new tech­nol­o­gy, build­ing on our region’s glob­al rep­u­ta­tion as a world­wide aero­space hub and sup­port­ing our low car­bon objec­tives for the region.”

In addi­tion to the grant part­ners, inter­na­tion­al gate­way Bris­tol Air­port will be act­ing as the prin­ci­pal sup­port air­port. Sub­se­quent input will be pro­vid­ed by oth­er air­ports in the region to ensure the concept’s trans­fer­abil­i­ty across dif­fer­ent infra­struc­ture.

Simon Ear­les, Sus­tain­abil­i­ty & Cor­po­rate Affairs Direc­tor, Bris­tol Air­port, added: “We have set the air­port an ambi­tious tar­get to be car­bon net zero by 2050. Inno­v­a­tive new approach­es to trav­el, like the air taxi ser­vice, are crit­i­cal to mak­ing this a real­i­ty and also sup­port the wider decar­bon­i­sa­tion agen­da in the South West, and we are proud to act as a test bed for this excit­ing project.”