Every major city will have its own unique airspace needs. The UATM Supply Chain will provide the capability to build out such services. Some cities will require UATM at a level of complexity requiring tens of millions in up‐front capital investment. New York – UAM infrastructure and operational costs and revenue Existing heliportsĪccording to the report: “The cost of implementing UATM systems will be borne by the private sector, likely as a “System as a service” model, staffed by scientific and technical personnel along with trained air traffic controllers supervising increasingly automated systems. NEXA has detailed the costs of developing and implementing ground infrastructure and UTM services in the individual cities. For each city infrastructure costs have been analysed and forecast, as well as potential passenger numbers (see below). The study includes a detailed city-by-city infrastructure planning analysis using satellite imagery and the ArcGIS geographic information system produced and maintained by ESRI. The Inflection Point for the industry will occur in multiple phases toward the end of the first decade….However, the ability of vehicle manufacturers to demonstrate and certify safe automated flight to greater than is a critical milestone, and as this will require logging hundreds of thousands of demonstration flight hours, starts now (and it has already begun).” “It is not difficult to visualize that cockpit automation will be necessary to improve the safety of flight, and drive costs – and ticket prices – down.
#Urban air prices full#
“The full potential of UAM will be achievable only with higher levels ofĪutomation of eVTOL flight, dynamic airspace access through geofencing, UATM oversight, sense‐and‐avoid surveillance and vehicle interoperability,” continues the study. eVTOL vehicle sales should surpass USD41 billion, representing many tens of thousands of vehicles.” “A capital investment along with operating costs for UAM and AUTM infrastructure is estimated to be about USD31.9 billion. This represents a 20 year average ticket price of USD188 per passenger. “Operator revenues brought about from substantial passenger demand of about 1.3 billion passenger flights yield USD244 billion across all 74cities,” says the report. There will be an initial foundation service period followed by an “Inflection Point” when the market starts to accelerate steeply brought about by increasing use of automation. The team estimates that there will be approximately 1.29 billion passengers flying the analyzed services in the 74 cities within the 20 year forecast period.
The upfront infrastructure investments for UAM heliports, vertiports, mega‐ports and airport landing sites – including passenger services, security and UAS traffic management services – will require more than USD30 billion in capital between today and 2040 but will generate direct income of around USD 318 billion, say the report authors, and total direct and indirect income of around USD600 billion. NEXA has researched detailed infrastructure requirements for 74 cities around the world which are most likely to pioneer urban air mobility operations. The first global, detailed, city-by-city analysis of urban air mobility investment costs, revenue potential and infrastructure requirements has been completed by Washington DC-based corporate and strategic financial consultancy NEXA Advisors.