Urban Air Mobility: When It Comes to the Public’s eVTOL Attitudes, It’s Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other

The March 2024 Issue of Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives published on Science Direct offers some advanced perspective on how the public-at-large will cotton to this whole ‘flying cars’ thing about to be unleashed on them (It’s kind of a ‘ready-or-not’ here we come kind of thing.). Researchers from Technische Universität Berlin, Hamid Mostofi, Tobias Biehle, Robin Kellermann, and Hans-Liudger Dienel presented their paper: Modelling public attitude towards air taxis in Germany. Using structural equation modelling (SEM), the scientists queried 819 people and the results were not entirely surprising, but definitely enlightening.

Plus & Minuses = Minuses

The paper found that people are positive about the prospect of air taxis/eVTOLs helping them avoid traffic jams and saving time. On the other hand… the new air traffic flows (above them, near them), increased noise, and a view of the sky around them pockmarked by eVTOLs crisscrossing the heavens above led to a negative perception of urban air mobility by the public.

You won’t find it much of a surprise to learn that the paper revealed that technophiles were more positive than technophobes when it comes to this sooner-than-most-people-think transportation revolution will descend (ascend?) upon us.

There’s a lot of money riding on this. eVTOL developers, such as Joby Aviation, Lilium, Paragon, Archer Aviation, Beta Technologies, and Volocopter, are estimated to have invested about US$4.6 billion in 2020 and 2021. Other factors, such as fares, age, gender, and vertiport accessibility impact the public’s attitude as well, but even a modestly populated city with 1.5 million inhabitants could result in 45,000 air taxi trips per day.  Das ist eine Menge Flugverkehr (That’s a lot of air traffic!)               

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