In spite of their long presence in the public consciousness, some fundamental questions have not, until now, been   addressed: How will these flying vehicles impact our urban environments? How can issues of energy, sound, and safety be approached? What protocols should be established with authorities to guarantee their safe and harmonious integration? More importantly, how could they be leveraged to improve our cities – not only for their users, but for everybody?
A leader in the field of UAM thanks to their on-demand helicopter service Voom, Airbus Urban Mobility envisions a comprehensive mobility concept. Over the course of the last two years, MVRDV supported Airbus in exploring strategic urban development scenarios that leverage UAM as an opportunity to grow cities around the globe into thriving urban regions. Crucially, the study aimed to avoid any detrimental impacts from this disruptive technology, which can so easily arise when truly revolutionary transport modes are introduced to cities without careful planning for both short-term and long-term scenarios. Instead, the research highlights how UAM can be made accessible to, and beneficial for, people of all backgrounds.

“As cities become denser and technologies improve, it becomes increasingly clear that the truly three-dimensional city – one that includes flying vehicles – is surely one of the city models of the future… a city where my mobility is at my balcony!” says Winy Maas, founding partner of MVRDV. “But to reach this future will require many small steps. It’s a credit to Airbus that they are thinking about these issues in advance, and doing so in a way that will improve things in the meantime.”
On a broader scale, the research investigates the potential of future UAM networks within cities, recognising that UAM should not seek to replace cities’ existing transport infrastructure. It concludes that once UAM is well established with an extensive network of vertiports, it could serve as an interesting contributor to a mobility system of discrete and distributed modes that complement rail or road infrastructure.
A mature network of vertiports could serve to connect disadvantaged areas of cities and remote areas without the need for expensive infrastructure; could vastly improve emergency response times; and could even allow ‘technological leapfrogging’ in developing countries, providing a transit network that is relatively inexpensive to create in cities that never developed extensive metro or tram systems. Together these benefits can give cities the accessibility that is needed to attract new economic opportunities.