Impact of Airspace Restrictions on Urban Air Mobility Airport Shuttle Service Route Feasibility
Mark T. Kotwicz Herniczek, Brian German
Abstract
Initial urban air mobility (UAM) operations are anticipated to include airport shuttle services between airport terminals and city centers. UAM airport shuttle operations have the potential to improve the customer experience and provide airports with new revenue streams but risk interfering with current airport operations. In this paper, we develop a discrete, heuristics-based optimization framework to explore the impact of airspace constraints and the placement of vertiports in the airport terminal area on the feasibility of UAM shuttle operations. The framework is applied to the terminal areas of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Small-scale UAM operations are found to be feasible at all three airports with current terminal-area procedures, particularly if UAM aircraft are classified as helicopters. Scaled-up operations are found to be most feasible at ATL because of the possibility of segregating UAM aircraft from commercial traffic, whereas scaled-up operations at LAX and DFW are expected to require the adoption of new technologies, procedures, and regulations.