Urban aerial mobility: Reshaping the future of urban transportation

Roadmap to the future urban mobility

Urbanization causes concentrated economic and social activities in urban areas, leading to high living standards, e.g., better economy, food, education, housing, healthcare, and entertainment. However, such a concentration comes at some costs, e.g., traffic congestion, pollution, overcrowding, and fast spread of disease, and among these, traffic congestion is a growing problem that is neutralizing the efficiency of urbanization. Indeed, traffic congestion leads to tremendous costs for large cities. For instance, INRIX estimated that the annual economic losses from traffic congestion in New York City and Los Angeles were $11.0 billion and $8.2 billion in 2019, respectively, and on average for each traveler, the annual wasted hours are 140 and 103, respectively. Situations are much more serious for cities in China, e.g., Beijing and Shanghai.