Sky Limits Project publishes final recommendations on integration of delivery drones and air taxis in Germany

Twelve rec­om­men­da­tions which will form a plan of action for the pos­si­ble inte­gra­tion of deliv­ery drones and air taxis in Ger­many have been pub­lished, fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of joint research project by the Tech­nis­che Uni­ver­sität Berlin and Wis­senschaft im Dia­log.

Over the past two years, the project — known as ‘Sky Lim­its’ — addressed the oppor­tu­ni­ties, chal­lenges and risks asso­ci­at­ed with the pos­si­ble use of this type of trans­porta­tion in Ger­man cities.

It was fund­ed as part of the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Research’s Inno­va­tion and Tech­nol­o­gy Analy­sis (ITA). Through­out 2019 and 2020, the project sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fied and exam­ined the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges pre­sent­ed by trans­port drones at the inter­face between tech­nol­o­gy assess­ment, futur­ol­o­gy and social-sci­en­tif­ic mobil­i­ty research.

The rec­om­men­da­tions are intend­ed to spark a pub­lic debate regard­ing the use of low­er air­space as a new traf­fic lev­el. They cov­er a wide range of areas, includ­ing devel­op­ing an air traf­fic man­age­ment sys­tem pri­or to the intro­duc­tion of drones on the basis of proac­tive poli­cies, rais­ing aware­ness among munic­i­pal­i­ties for the pos­si­ble intro­duc­tion of deliv­ery drones and air taxis, and strength­en­ing their capac­i­ties to organ­ise such devel­op­ments.

It also recog­nis­es the need to iden­ti­fy cur­rent pub­lic oppo­si­tion to deliv­er­ies of con­sumer goods using drones. The rec­om­men­da­tions are aimed at politi­cians, busi­ness, and urban and trans­port plan­ners.

Dr. Robin Keller­mann, project coor­di­na­tor of Sky Lim­its at TU Berlin’s Chair of Work, Tech­nol­o­gy and Par­tic­i­pa­tion, said: “At the moment, the debate con­cern­ing the pos­si­ble use of drones is pri­mar­i­ly dri­ven by the com­mer­cial sec­tor. At the same time, there is a lack of sci­en­tif­ic con­fir­ma­tion of the added val­ues that man­u­fac­tur­ers promise the pop­u­la­tion as a result of using this tech­nol­o­gy. Con­se­quent­ly, dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives and com­pet­ing views need to be includ­ed in the debate.”

The 12 rec­om­men­da­tions are:

• The debate about the use of drones for deliv­er­ies and indi­vid­ual trans­port must become more objec­tive and more detailed
• The com­pet­ing images of the future must be con­sid­ered and nego­ti­a­tions must pay atten­tion to these diverg­ing images of the use of deliv­ery drones and air taxis
• The debate must be widened out to take in soci­ety as a whole, because drone flights are always pub­lic
• The inclu­sion of the pop­u­la­tion must be for­malised, for exam­ple by con­ven­ing cit­i­zens’ assem­blies
• It must be recog­nised that, at present, the pop­u­la­tion is not in favour of the intro­duc­tion of deliv­ery drones and air taxis to deliv­er con­sumer goods and trans­port peo­ple
• It must be appre­ci­at­ed that, cur­rent­ly, the imple­men­ta­tion of drone tech­nol­o­gy is only accept­able in med­ical emer­gen­cies
• The real added val­ue of deliv­ery drones and air taxis must be made more plau­si­ble for the pop­u­la­tion and the devel­op­ment of the tech­nol­o­gy must be guid­ed by the needs of the pop­u­la­tion
• Con­tin­u­ing in-depth tech­nol­o­gy assess­ment must be car­ried out on the poten­tial use of deliv­ery drones and air taxis
• A con­cep­tu­al guid­ing prin­ci­ple must be agreed which embeds the use of deliv­ery drones and air taxis with­in a par­a­digm of sus­tain­able and inte­grat­ed trans­port.
• Pol­i­cy-mak­ing must be proac­tive and pro­mote the devel­op­ment of clear air traf­fic man­age­ment rules before drone tech­nol­o­gy is intro­duced
• Local author­i­ties must be alert­ed to the issue and equipped with greater struc­tur­ing and man­age­ment abil­i­ties for a poten­tial intro­duc­tion of deliv­ery drones and air taxis
• A Ger­man drone char­ter must be draft­ed to ensure that the use of air­space by deliv­ery drones and air taxis is guid­ed by the com­mon good

Sky Lim­its also exam­ined the lev­el of pub­lic sup­port for the intro­duc­tion of trans­port drones. One rep­re­sen­ta­tive pub­lic sur­vey con­duct­ed in 2020 revealed 55 per cent of peo­ple liv­ing in Ger­many fun­da­men­tal­ly reject the use of deliv­ery drones, and 62 per cent when it comes to air taxis.

The major­i­ty can only imag­ine their use in emer­gen­cies, such as to deliv­er med­i­cine (63 per cent) and trans­port the sick (65 per cent). As a result, the Sky Lim­its team rec­om­mends that future devel­op­ments take account of the wish­es expressed by soci­ety and restrict the use of trans­port drones to med­ical emer­gen­cies.

In their rec­om­men­da­tions, the team calls for the pub­lic to be more close­ly involved in future dis­cus­sions as it is ulti­mate­ly they who will be direct­ly affect­ed by the intro­duc­tion of deliv­ery drones and air taxis.

Nico Dan­nen­berg­er, project leader of Sky Lim­its at Wis­senschaft im Dia­log, added: “This is pri­mar­i­ly the respon­si­bil­i­ty of polit­i­cal deci­sion-mak­ers. They now need to involve the pub­lic and local com­mu­ni­ties in dis­cus­sions about the use of deliv­ery drones and air taxis. One option for this would be cit­i­zen coun­cils.”

Accord­ing to anoth­er rec­om­men­da­tion, social, eco­nom­ic and eco­log­i­cal con­se­quences should be mon­i­tored on an ongo­ing basis. There also need to be clear and bind­ing deci­sions regard­ing which rules and reg­u­la­tions would apply for the use of urban air­space as a new traf­fic lev­el. 

You can read the final paper and its rec­om­men­da­tions, by click­ing here.