Implementing mitigations for improving societal acceptance of urban air mobility

The continuous development of technical innovations provides the opportunity to create new economic markets and a wealth of new services. However, these innovations sometimes raise concerns, notably in terms of societal, safety, and environmental impacts. This is the case for services related to the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), which are emerging rapidly. Unmanned aerial vehicles, also called drones, date back to the first third of the twentieth century in aviation industry, when they were mostly used for military purposes. Nowadays, drones of various types and sizes are used for many purposes, such as precision agriculture, search and rescue missions, aerial photography, shipping and delivery, etc. Starting to operate in areas with low population density, drones are now looking for business in urban and suburban areas, in what is called urban air mobility (UAM). However, this rapid growth of the drone industry creates psychological fear of the unknown in some parts of society. Reducing this fear will play an important role in public acceptance of drone operations in urban areas. This paper presents the main concerns of society with regard to drone operations, as already captured in some public surveys, and proposes a list of mitigation measures to reduce these concerns. The proposed list is then analyzed, and its applicability to individual, urban, very large demonstration flights is explained, using the feedback from the CORUS-XUAM project. CORUS-XUAM will organize a set of very large drone flight demonstrations across seven European countries to investigate how to safely integrate drone operations into airspace with the support of the U-space.This project has received funding from the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain under grant PID2020-116377RB-C21 and from the SESAR Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 101017682. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the SESAR JU members other than the Union.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Urban air mobility (UAM) in the metropolitan region of São Paulo: Potential and threats

Purpose: The increase in congestion and pollution in large cities combined with the innovation of air transport technology (drones and vertical takeoff and electric propulsion vehicles – eVTOL) and with the advances in autonomous technology have stimulated this research on the potential of Urban Air Mobility – UAM as an alternative to improve mobility conditions in urban centers. In this research, the evaluation of public acceptance of UAM was carried out with a focus on the metropolitan region of São Paulo (RMSP), the largest metropolitan region in Brazil, with about 22 million inhabitants, and one of the ten most populous metropolitan regions in the world. Design/methodology: To fulfill the proposed purpose, an assessment of public acceptance of UAM (based on a survey) was developed. The survey identified the perceptions of potential customers regarding the gains of the air mobility alternative, as well as the restrictions and fears in relation to the UAM. The opinion poll was carried out along the same lines as the work carried out in Europe, allowing the comparison of results between the two markets. Findings: The main results indicated the biggest problems for the implementation of UAM services in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, as well as the expectations and restrictions of customers, which will be important subsidies for the development of public policies to improve conditions mobility in the region. Originality/value: UAM is a new, disruptive mobility technology that can improve travel conditions in highly congested urban centers, such as the RMSP. The success of this new technology depends on understanding the challenges and opportunities, but mainly on the perception and expectations of potential customers.Peer Reviewe

Decarbonising suburbia: Homeowners’ perspectives on home retrofits and travel mode shift in Perth, Scotland

Suburban neighbourhoods pose challenges to decarbonisation, due to high car-dependency and relatively large and energy inefficient homes. Home ownership dominates suburbia, thus putting responsibility on households to adopt measures to decarbonise their domestic lives and transportation. This paper examines household perspectives on the feasibility of such measures. We ran a survey and focus groups in Perth (Scotland) during the energy crisis. Whilst we found high levels of concern about climate change, energy costs, and growing engagement with cleaner technologies (e.g. heat pumps), most residents felt decarbonisation options were limited. Barriers like technologies’ up-front costs, worsened with the cost of living crisis. Participants had low familiarity with sharing economy approaches like car clubs. Despite high (non-electric) bike ownership and prevalence of storage space (garages), cycling was more perceived as a leisure activity than a regular transport mode. There were shared views that the state should take a stronger role in coordinating and implementing systemic changes required for energy transition, including measures affecting residents directly, like reducing car traffic into the city centre. We conclude that despite the economic privilege of high home and car ownership in suburbia, few felt financially able to decarbonise and most seem locked into high-carbon suburban lifestyles

Sustainable Freight Transport

This Special Issue of Sustainability reports on recent research aiming to make the freight transport sector more sustainable. The sector faces significant challenges in different domains of sustainability, including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the management of health and safety impacts. In particular, the intention to decarbonise the sector’s activities has led to a strong increase in research efforts—this is also the main focus of the Special Issue. Sustainable freight transport operations represent a significant challenge with multiple technical, operational, and political aspects. The design, testing, and implementation of interventions require multi-disciplinary, multi-country research. Promising interventions are not limited to introducing new transport technologies, but also include changes in framework conditions for transport, in terms of production and logistics processes. Due to the uncertainty of impacts, the number of stakeholders, and the difficulty of optimizing across actors, understanding the impacts of these measures is not a trivial problem. Therefore, research is not only needed on the design and evaluation of individual interventions, but also on the approach of their joint deployment through a concerted public/private programme. This Special Issue addresses both dimensions, in two distinct groups of papers—the programming of interventions and the individual sustainability measures themselves

Informe mensual d’articles indexats a Scopus. Febrer 2022

Informe mensual d'articles publicats a Scopus al Campus Baix Llobregat. Base de dades Scopus. Febrer 2022.Postprint (published version

High-resolution assessment of air quality in urban areas—a business model perspective

The increasing availability of low-cost air quality sensors has led to novel sensing approaches. Distributed networks of low-cost sensors, together with data fusion and analytics, have enabled unprecedented, spatiotemporal resolution when observing the urban atmosphere. Several projects have demonstrated the potential of different approaches for high-resolution measurement networks ranging from static, low-cost sensor networks over vehicular and airborne sensing to crowdsourced measurements as well as ranging from a research-based operation to citizen science. Yet, sustaining the operation of such low-cost air quality sensor networks remains challenging because of the lack of regulatory support and the lack of an organizational framework linking these measurements to the official air quality network. This paper discusses the logical inclusion of lower-cost air quality sensors into the existing air quality network via a dynamic field calibration process, the resulting sustainable business models, and how this expansion can be self-funded

The application of social marketing in promoting sustainable transportation

The traditional approach of dealing with transportation issues appears to be insufficient in bringing about sustainable urban traffic, as it does not take into account complex psychological processes assisting people in making their travel choices. New approaches are required to raise the effectiveness of transportation policies, by facilitating higher levels of public acceptance and engagement in promoted activities. The current thesis aims to assist policy-makers and program-designers in making transportation systems more sustainable by employing a social marketing approach. It provides an in-depth understanding of what social marketing is, demonstrates its advantages over the traditional transportation planning process, and explores its successful application in Lund and Malmo, located in the south of Sweden – two of the leading European cities in sustainable transportation systems

Qualitative assessment of the DYNAMIX policy mixes

This report builds on the findings of the qualitative ex-ante assessment s of the policy mixes developed under the DYNAMIX project1. In doing so, it identifies some of the challenges associated with the forward-looking evaluation of policy mixes generally, and with the specific policy mixes identified by the DYNAMIX project. It also notes key areas of consonance and divergence between the qualitative ex ante assessments under consideration, and the quantitative ex-ante assessments carried out in parallel, and identifies possible implications for policy. The report first explains the methodology adopted for each aspect of the qualitative ex-ante assessment; it then discusses some of the challenges which were common to all or several of the assessments, or which arise from the process of bringing separate assessments together to form a single overview. Understanding these challenges, and thus the nature of the messages that emerge from the evaluations (both in terms of the valuable light they provide, and in terms of their limitations) is important to their effective use in policymaking. Moreover, some of the challenges of the evaluations themselves reflect the challenges faced by policymakers in developing responses at the scale required to deliver a significant shift towards improved resource efficiency in the European economy. This report then addresses the comparison with the quantitative assessment carried out in parallel under the DYNAMIX project, looking at both the economic modelling and the physical and environmental modelling, and respectively comparing them with the economic and the environmental qualitative assessments. This report does not aim to recapitulate the detailed findings of the individual qualitative assessments, which are summarised in Annex 1. Rather, it attempts to identify some key messages which emerge from the process of bringing together separate qualitative assessments which address different facets of the impacts of policy mixes, using different methodological approaches; a process which was informed by the comparison with the results emerging from the quantitative assessment. These messages appear to be of broad relevance to the development of policy mixes for resource efficiency. In particular, we identify: \u2022 The importance of understanding public acceptability issues, and the potential for policy sequencing to be used to help achieve the required changes in paradigms over time; \u2022 The challenges involved in developing appropriate, and effective, tax instruments , which requires attention to the risk of overlaps between tax instruments, and is confronted with a broad challenge of public acceptability; \u2022 The need to address the impact of extra - EU material flows in the form of imports and exports , both in terms of the potential impacts (often exaggerated in the public discourse) on EU economic interests, and in terms of the impact of EU policies on environmental and other outcomes in other economies; \u2022 The importance of addressing social impacts at an early stage in policy design, in order to ensure that accompanying measures reinforce and facilitate the shift to resource efficiency among low - income households in particular. \u2022 The need for coherence and consistency in the development of policy mixes , based on forward - looking roadmapping, effective sequencing , and an awareness of the challenges posed by uncertainty (both uncertainty in relation to the impact of individual policies, and uncertainty as to the broader context in which policies will be implemented)

Standardization Roadmap for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Version 2.0

This Standardization Roadmap for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Version 2.0 (“roadmap”) is an update to version 1.0 of this document published in December 2018. It identifies existing standards and standards in development, assesses gaps, and makes recommendations for priority areas where there is a perceived need for additional standardization and/or pre-standardization R&D. The roadmap has examined 78 issue areas, identified a total of 71 open gaps and corresponding recommendations across the topical areas of airworthiness; flight operations (both general concerns and application-specific ones including critical infrastructure inspections, commercial services, and public safety operations); and personnel training, qualifications, and certification. Of that total, 47 gaps/recommendations have been identified as high priority, 21 as medium priority, and 3 as low priority. A “gap” means no published standard or specification exists that covers the particular issue in question. In 53 cases, additional R&D is needed. As with the earlier version of this document, the hope is that the roadmap will be broadly adopted by the standards community and that it will facilitate a more coherent and coordinated approach to the future development of standards for UAS. To that end, it is envisioned that the roadmap will continue to be promoted in the coming year. It is also envisioned that a mechanism may be established to assess progress on its implementation