Urban Air Mobility Market Study

The Booz Allen Team explored market size and potential barriers to Urban Air Mobility (UAM) by focusing on three potential markets – Airport Shuttle, Air Taxi, and Air Ambulance. We found that the Airport Shuttle and Air Taxi markets are viable, with a significant total available market value in the U.S. of $500 billion, for a fully unconstrained scenario. In this unconstrained best-case scenario, passengers would have the ability to access and fly a UAM at any time, from any location to any destination, without being hindered by constraints such as weather, infrastructure, or traffic volume. Significant legal and regulatory, weather, certification, public perception, and infrastructure constraints exist, which reduce the market potential for these applications to only about 0.5$2.5 billion, in the near term. However, we determined that these constraints can be addressed through ongoing intra-governmental partnerships, government and industry collaboration, strong industry commitment, and existing legal and regulatory enablers. We found that the Air Ambulance market is not a viable market if served by electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles due to technology constraints but may potentially be viable if a hybrid VTOL aircraft are utilized

National remote and regional transport strategy: consultation draft

On 22 May 2014, the Northern Territory hosted the National Remote and Regional Transport Infrastructure and Services Forum in Alice Springs, attended by 120 industry, government and community representatives from all areas of Australia. Following the Forum, the Council agreed for the Northern Territory to lead the development of the National Remote and Regional Transport Strategy, in collaboration with the South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and Commonwealth governments. The Strategy will propose specific actions to address issues faced in remote and regional areas in relation to transport infrastructure, services and regulation. On 22 May 2015, the Council approved the release of the draft Strategy for public consultation. As part of the consultation period, stakeholders are invited to provide feedback on the draft Strategy and its proposed actions. For more information on the Strategy, or to make a submission, please visit the following link: www.transport.nt.gov.au/nrrts. Please note the closing date for submissions is 5pm Friday 31 July 2015 (ACST). Transport – A Vital Role The availability and quality of transport infrastructure and services impacts on every part of our society and wellbeing. Good transport systems provide a platform for improving productivity and driving social and economic growth for all Australians. Remote and Regional Areas – Supporting all of Australia The remote and regional area of Australia covers 85 percent of the Australian land mass, however has only 15 percent of the Australian population. But significantly, this area is responsible for 40 percent of Australia\u27s GDP due to its considerable resource sector and primary industries. Transport Challenges Remote and regional areas face specific transport challenges which do not apply to the highly populated eastern seaboard of Australia – all influenced by vast distances, a small population, climatic extremes, and demanding geography. It is for this reason that a one size fits all approach to transport regulation and infrastructure and service delivery just doesn\u27t work for the remote and regional areas of Australia. The Need for a National Strategy The aim of the National Remote and Regional Transport Strategy is to provide some practical solutions to the issues and challenges faced by transport system providers and users so that this important area of Australia can continue to grow and contribute to Australia\u27s wellbeing. The Council will discuss the final Strategy and its implementation at its meeting in November 2015

On the treatment of risk/safety aspects within safety assessment of aviation

Safety of aircraft is a hot topic due to the safety-critical nature of its operation and its significant negative impact it could pose to a larger society. In order to understand aviation safety in detail, it is important to understand how safety is considered at fundamental level historically and how it is incorporated in problem solving and decision-making process of recent times. In aviation, safety and risk are most often used interchangeably. Safety is used to represent overall condition of safety of the system of systems or the safe operation aspect of aircraft or aircraft as an integrated flightworthy system which needs to demonstrate safety in a regulatory point of view. Risk is the term used to represent or address extreme events having high impact potential which could possibly derail overall safety of aircraft or also Risk is a prospective concept whose careful implementation could help organizations to demonstrate and achieve safety in a longer period of time. This thesis was approached with a generic literature survey which includes a summarized view on the risk implementation in aviation. The thesis considers Safety Management System as a framework with which safety is incorporated in aircraft. The thesis investigates various aspects of importance in aviation safety management area. The overall question to be addressed is on how aspects of safety/risk is incorporated into aviation safety. The study revealed that the risk constructs are significant in aviation safety when it is applied through a standardized framework which is framed with the principle of safety at its core

The ICAO Assembly Resolutions on international aviation and climate change: Historic agreement, breakthrough deal and the Cancun effect

In what the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) heralds as a 'historic agreement' and the European Union (EU) calls a 'breakthrough deal', the recent ICAO Assembly Resolutions A37-18 and 19 mark the end of the Assembly Resolution A36-22 'mutual agreement' stalemate on emissions trading, which represents a significant achievement with respect to aviation and climate change. Although Assembly Resolutions A37-18 and 19 are non-binding, the as yet 'aspirational' goals that they set out demonstrate the collective will of the civil aviation industry and ICAO Member States to work together towards the common objective of limiting and reducing the global impact of aviation noise and emissions. The texts of Assembly Resolutions A37-18 and 19 prompt closer analysis vis-à-vis questions of whether ICAO is (still) the appropriate forum for addressing international aviation emissions and on the legitimacy of its manifesto for continuous leadership. ICAO's general approval for use of market-based mechanisms to establish a viable global framework mechanism for aviation emissions is also noteworthy, particularly in the context of the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), the position of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention), and recent legal challenge against inclusion of aviation in the scheme. This article suggests that on emergence from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)'s 16th Conference of the Parties (COP-16) in Cancun in December 2010, the ICAO Member States and the aviation sector should feel proud that the spirit of cooperation and sense of success they promoted in the wake of the recent ICAO Assembly Resolutions may have contributed to the most recent progress in the global campaign against climate change: the Cancun Agreements. Thus, this article argues it is foreseeable that the latest progress under the UNFCCC process will have a reverse demonstrative effect on future ICAO dialogue and resolution

Discrimination, labour markets and the Labour Market Prospects of Older Workers: What Can a Legal Case Teach us?

As governments become increasingly concerned about the fiscal implications of the ageing population, labour market policies have sought to encourage mature workers to remain in the labour force. The ‘human capital’ discourses motivating these policies rest on the assumption that older workers armed with motivation and vocational skills will be able to return to fulfilling work. This paper uses the post-redundancy recruitment experiences of former Ansett Airlines flight attendants to develop a critique of these expectations. It suggests that policies to increase older workers’ labour market participation will not succeed while persistent socially constructed age- and gender- typing shape labour demand. The conclusion argues for policies sensitive to the institutional structures that shape employer preferences, the competitive rationality of discriminatory practices, and the irresolvable tension between workers’ human rights and employers’ property rights

Does the NIS implementation strategy effectively address cyber security risks in the UK?

This research explored how cyber security risks are managed across UK Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) sectors following implementation of the 2018 Networks and Information Security (NIS) legislation. Being in its infancy, there has been limited study into the effectiveness of this national framework for cyber risk management. The analysis of data gathered through interviews with key stakeholders against the NIS objectives indicated a collaborative implementation approach to improve cyber-risk management capabilities in CNI sectors. However, more work is required to bridge the gaps in the NIS framework to ensure holistic security across cyber spaces as well as non-cyber elements: cyber-physical security, cross-sector CNI service security measures, outcome-based regulatory assessments and risks due to connected smart technology implementations alongside legacy systems. This paper proposes ten key recommendations to counter the danger of not meeting the NIS key strategic objectives. In particular, it recommends that the approach to NIS implementation needs further alignment with its objectives, such as bringing a step-change in the cyber-security risk management capabilities of the CNI sectors

Safety arguments for next generation location aware computing

Concerns over the accuracy, availability, integrity and continuity of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have limited the integration of GPS and GLONASS for safety-critical applications. More recent augmentation systems, such as the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) and the North American Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) have begun to address these concerns. Augmentation architectures build on the existing GPS/GLONASS infrastructures to support locationbased services in Safety of Life (SoL) applications. Much of the technical development has been directed by air traffic management requirements, in anticipation of the more extensive support to be offered by GPS III and Galileo. WAAS has already been approved to provide vertical guidance against ICAO safety performance criteria for aviation applications. During the next twelve months, we will see the full certification of EGNOS for SoL applications. This paper identifies strong similarities between the safety assessment techniques used in Europe and North America. Both have relied on hazard analysis techniques to derive estimates of the Probability of Hazardously Misleading Information (PHMI). Later sections identify significant differences between the approaches adopted in application development. Integrated fault trees have been developed by regulatory and commercial organisations to consider both infrastructure hazards and their impact on non-precision RNAV/VNAV approaches using WAAS. In contrast, EUROCONTROL and the European Space Agency have developed a more modular approach to safety-case development for EGNOS. It remains to be seen whether the European or North American strategy offers the greatest support as satellite based augmentation systems are used within a growing range of SoL applications from railway signalling through to Unmanned Airborne Systems. The key contribution of this paper is to focus attention on the safety arguments that might support this wider class of location based services