Innovative air mobility and services for sustainable and smart urban, peri-urban transport – Societal Readiness pilot

Project results should deliver: climate-neutral, smart, resilient and safe IAM and services, accepted by local communities; strengthened institutional capacities for IAM; new tools and services for optimizing IAM and governance arrangements for multimodal networks; evidence-based guidelines and co-designed recommendations for sustainable urban air mobility ecosystems (e.g. planning processes, SUMP integration); advanced understanding and quantification of IAM’s value, benefits and urban logistics use cases; enhanced multimodality, urban logistics planning and stakeholder communication replicable by other cities; creation of jobs and long-term economic growth through IAM service implementation; responsiveness to diverse social group needs and concerns to boost societal uptake and trust in results; and a replicable training/competence-building framework and lessons learned for wider deployment.

Proposals must address at least seven of the following: 1. Prepare a roadmap defining needs for new or upgraded IAM infrastructures and logistics. 2. Collaborate with city authorities to co-design and integrate drone infrastructure (vertiports, landing areas, charging stations) into Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans, covering environmental, safety, security and privacy aspects. 3. Assess eVTOL downwash/outwash effects on urban microclimate and vertiport area requirements for various aircraft configurations. 4. Define and assess noise-monitoring needs and tools for planned drone/IAM operations, building on EASA and other studies. 5. Propose how to integrate IAM into existing urban freight transport flows to enhance multimodality. 6. Conduct real-world demonstration activities for cargo delivery (e.g. medical supplies) with data collection and flight monitoring, ensuring safety in dense urban areas. 7. Evaluate and quantify cargo-delivery impacts on congestion, noise, pollution and current/future airspace capacity for large-scale operations. 8. Develop sustainable business models for IAM logistics services, identifying key high-benefit use cases. 9. Co-design IAM services with city authorities and citizens; develop strategies to raise public awareness and secure buy-in. 10. Identify attractive benefits and incentives for early adopters to accelerate market deployment. 11. Report lessons learned, issue replication recommendations for other cities and develop training/competence-building packages for stakeholders. 12. Analyse potential rebound effects and energy-sufficiency issues from extensive, large-scale IAM use. Proposals must involve city authorities (multi-level governance) and logistics operators and build on H2020 projects such as AiRMOUR. They must exploit synergies with the EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities and SESAR 3, and align with EASA activities. Societal Readiness pilot instructions and interdisciplinary SSH expertise must be integrated.