Proposal of Seoul’s UAM Routes and Vertiports with Spatial Data Analysis

Abstract

Since UAM is a new mobility that does not exist before, all domains such as operating concept, demand, and safety are uncertain, and this uncertainty can reduce the acceptance of all related parties to the UAM industry. Therefore, for stable commercialization of UAM, it is necessary to consider all possible situations and remove uncertainties by analyzing them from various perspectives. Especially, it is necessary to ‘reassure’ people by presenting an objective basis for the utility and safety of the UAM industry through data-based analysis. At that point, UAM route and vertiport location are key elements to verify their utility and safety. Thus, we presented a spatial data analysis methodology through the Grid-based analysis method for UAM route design and Vertiport location selection and proposed practical and immediate UAM route and Vertiport location using spatial data in Seoul. In this process, comprehensive and reliable research results were derived by reflecting various factors such as the aviation operation aspect of the existing air traffic system, properties of UAM, urban transport demand aspect and topographical properties from the perspective of aviation experts. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.