Following the launches of flying hoverbikes and the Dubai Police flying motorbikes, Ile-de-France, region of France, which includes Paris, unveiled its new urban transport project: Urban Air Mobility. On September 2020, the region administration has confirmed that the area will acquire a whole drone fleet. Focus on these electrical vertical take-off Drone taxis, which have their place on the stage of Las Vegas CES!
Drone taxis: The Urban Air Mobility project are in the starting-blocks
The 2024 Olympics Games perspective give free rein to audacity. When it comes to drone taxis, the myth is becoming reality. A serious challenge which requires the involvement of a multitude of major contributors.
As well as the drone transport specialists, the Parisian airport infrastructures (the ADP Group), the RATP Group (Autonomous Parisian Transportation Administration) and the Ile-de-France region policy makers have rallied the Urban Air Mobility project. When it will become concrete, this ambition will grant to the region of Ile-de-France a significant exposure which strive to position itself as an urban air mobility reference in the global market.
A custom-made full-scale test in the Val-d’Oise region
A test zone fitted out with runways and priority areas have also been elaborated at the Pontoise aerodrome (in Cormeilles-en-Vexin, Val d’Oise). This testing laboratory dedicated to drones will unveil the air mobility needs and uses, while focusing on these questions:
- Infrastructures: electrical charge systems, vertiports and droneports, boarding zone…
- Technologies and industrialization: communication and navigation systems, digital platforms, batteries, fuel cells…
- Maintenance and airspace surveillance challenges (Eurocontrol, AESA…).
First flights expected for June 2021 and for the 2024 Olympics
The selected prototypes, such as the Volocity devices from the German group Volocopter ®, could go after this new first class playing field as soon as June 2021 as part of real conditions flights. The key objective is a commissioning for the 2024 Olympics Games.
2030: how to expand the taxi drone’s grid after the Olympics?
The Urban Air Mobility project can thought of as an experience catalyst for the region’s air mobility. As a matter of fact, the RATP Group already have a high-powered commercial offer in mind. By 2030, a dozen of vertiports – boarding areas set in electrical vertical take-off and landing aircraft devices (eVTOL) – disseminated in the Ile-de-France region will allowed the development of the air transport network. Not only it will encourage users to take this method of locomotion, but also it will facilitate help health emergencies along, stimulate tourism and relieve the traffic congestion in this particularly dense geographical zone.
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