A Flight Path to Reducing UAM and Drone Accident Rates in Seoul in 2035

Writing in the January 2025 issue of Urban Science, Han Yeol Baek of the Department of Architecture at Hannam University, South Korea and Jung Hon Kim of the Department of Urban Planning and Real Estate Studies, Pyeongtaek University South Korea, published their study, “Prediction of Urban Air Mobility and Drone Accident Rates and the Role of Urban Management Systems.” The pair aimed to predict the accident rates of urban air mobility and drone operations and the role urban management systems can play in mitigating any adverse outcomes.

As UAM and drone operations are integrated into urban life, the researchers sought to predict what the accident rates will be in Seoul in 2035 based on the accident rates of conventional aircraft. The study assumed that the infrastructure for urban air mobility (UAM) vehicles and drones, i.e., taxiways and flight paths is constructed similar to that of large aircraft.

Here’s what the study showed:

The study predicted accident rates of UAM vehicles and drones based on the accident rates of conventional aircraft. Control measures for UAM vehicles and drones are presented at a basic level. The results can be summarized as follows: First, in terms of accident rates, for a projected total UAM vehicle flight distance of 650 km and 177,147 h of flight in Seoul in 2035, 0.000221 crashes, 0.45 takeoff/landing accidents, and 0.0011446 deaths are expected. Second, if drones handle 0.5% of the logistics in Seoul in 2035, 38.35 crashes and 7.51 takeoff/landing accidents are projected per year. However, these numbers are plausible only if the infrastructure required for UAM vehicle and drone flights, such as taxiways and flight paths, is built similarly to that for large aircraft.

The study assumed eight UAM routes in Seoul operating at 150km/h (approximately 93mph) from 08:00 to 21:00 (14 h) every day and that UAM vehicles would travel each route once every 15 min. By factoring in autonomously operated flights which excluded accidents caused by human factors (50%), the sum of accidents owing to technical errors (22%), inclement weather (12%), intentional sabotage (9%), and miscellaneous causes (7%) yielded an extremely low value of 0.000221 accidents per 177,147 flight-h per year making the probability of reaching target levels of safety (TLS) even greater.

When smart cities technologies were overlaid onto the UAM and drone operations, the study predicted even better outcomes. Such technologies include emergency dispatch services and emergency disaster notification services to respond to emergencies; thus, it is possible to immediately notify the degree of risk to urban residents and facilities on the ground in the event of a UAM/drone crash or an emergency. They also have an accident handling process in place.

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