A Vertiport Design Heuristic to Ensure Efficient Ground Operations for Urban Air Mobility
Source abstract
Abstract
Urban Air Mobility is a novel concept of transportation with unknown market potential. Even in conservative estimates, thousands of operations could be expected on a single vertiport. This exceeds known heliport operations, which is the most comparable existing mode of transport—by far. Vertiport operations, in particular the dynamics on the airfield, are not well understood; in the following article, we want to address this research gap. By using means of agent-based simulation, the following design drivers were identified: peaks in demand, imbalance between arrivals and departures, pad operations and gate operations. We calculate a practical hourly capacity of 264 movements for our baseline scenario consisting of 4 pads, 12 gates and 20 stand. We are further able to shown that avoiding this peak and staying below a maximum imbalance between arrivals and departures of less than 33 ensures an average passenger delay of less than 3 min. Lastly, we present a parameter study varying the number of pads and gates, the length of approach/departure and boarding/de-boarding and the level of demand. The results of this study are aggregated into a graphical design heuristic displaying the interchangeability of the mentioned aspects.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Transportation Planning and Optimization · Air Traffic Management and Optimization · Aviation Industry Analysis and Trends
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
School of Engineering and Design, Technical University of Munich, Arcisstraße 21, 80333 München, Germany
Bauhaus Luftfahrt, Willy-Messerschmitt-Straße 1, 82024 Taufkirchen, Germany
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