Urban Air Mobility ‘must incorporate the needs of disabled citizens’, according to new white paper

A new white paper pub­lished by CIVATA­glob­al and UK dis­abled fly­ing char­i­ty Aer­o­bil­i­ty has said reg­u­la­tors, local author­i­ties and indus­try groups must incor­po­rate the views and pri­or­i­ties of dis­abled groups in the ear­ly plan­ning phase if the poten­tial of urban air mobil­i­ty (UAM) is to be ful­ly realised.

Intro­duc­ing the doc­u­ment, a press release announc­ing the doc­u­ment said: “If this new trans­port era is to be ful­ly realised it can only be done on the basis of inclu­siv­i­ty, to ensure the needs of dis­abled cit­i­zens are ful­ly tak­en into account from the start.”

Accord­ing to the white paper, the key areas which need to be addressed include:

• Ensur­ing devel­op­ers of UAM ground infra­struc­ture and plat­forms ful­ly take into account the needs of dis­abled pas­sen­gers – and the non-trav­el­ling pub­lic — in con­sid­er­ing issues of access and egress
• Avi­a­tion safe­ty reg­u­la­tors must take account of the needs of peo­ple with reduced mobil­i­ty in their reg­u­la­tions
• In smart city pro­grammes where autonomous vehi­cles are being planned both in the air and on the ground, it is vital that dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty groups are incor­po­rat­ed into the ear­li­est plan­ning
• A repos­i­to­ry of ‘best prac­tices’ from around the world needs to be launched so devel­op­ers can under­stand not just the basic prin­ci­ples but the detailed engi­neer­ing solu­tions

Based at Black­bushe Air­port — locat­ed at the bor­ders of Berk­shire, Hamp­shire and Sur­rey — Aer­o­bil­i­ty offers any­one with any dis­abil­i­ty the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn to fly and par­tic­i­pate in avi­a­tion-based activ­i­ties. It also rep­re­sents the needs of dis­abled peo­ple what­ev­er their avi­a­tion needs and aspi­ra­tions.

Mike Miller-Smith, CEO of Aer­o­bil­i­ty, said: “From the out­set, urban air mobil­i­ty ser­vices and advanced air mobil­i­ty ser­vices must be planned with the needs of those who stand to ben­e­fit most from its intro­duc­tion in mind – dis­abled com­mu­ni­ties.

“Peo­ple will be able to fly from ori­gin to des­ti­na­tion in ways which seem only appro­pri­ate to sci­ence fic­tion. Once beyond pro­to­type stage, autonomous air vehi­cle design will need to devel­op in ways that enable its use by visu­al­ly impaired pas­sen­gers and those requir­ing wheel­chair access for exam­ple, just as has been done and is required on many oth­er urban trans­port net­works.

“Much to the detri­ment of those liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ty, we have learnt the hard and expen­sive way, that this will be much more dif­fi­cult to achieve if not incor­po­rat­ed ear­ly.”

While CIVATA­glob­al, also known as the Civic Air Trans­port Asso­ci­a­tion, is the glob­al trade asso­ci­a­tion of the advanced air mobil­i­ty sec­tor. It was launched last year to bring togeth­er cities and indus­tries in a sin­gle glob­al com­mu­ni­ty, act­ing a forum to share expe­ri­ences, plans, access infor­ma­tion resource and enable the intro­duc­tion of safe, prof­itable, envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble urban air mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions.

Andrew Charl­ton, Direc­tor Gen­er­al of CIVATA­glob­al, added: “In Decem­ber 2020, 14 Euro­pean cities deliv­ered a man­i­festo to the Euro­pean Union call­ing on local author­i­ties to play a key role in the devel­op­ment of urban air mobil­i­ty ini­tia­tives in Europe.

“Our two organ­i­sa­tions are now also call­ing for UAM plans to include rep­re­sen­ta­tives of dis­abil­i­ty groups at the ear­li­est pos­si­ble stage in the process; we want to get best-prac­tice in acces­si­bil­i­ty built into the ear­ly devel­op­ment and DNA of the indus­try, so that those with most to gain are not left behind.”

The White Paper can be accessed here.