Learnings from Luxembourg Masterclass on Urban Air Mobility

AiRMOUR organised a masterclass on Urban Air Mobility and its application for the Emergency Medical Services sector on December 7th and 8th. 

Of the twelve cities involved as Replicators in the AiRMOUR project, five of them attended the event. We asked several representatives what they learnt from the masterclass and how they are going to take the knowledge further. We gladly share the reflections from Senior Strategic Knowledge Centre officer Júlia Miczki from Budapest, Assistant Transport Strategy Officer Marie Godward from Manchester and Project Manager Camilla Wikström from the City of Stockholm.

You can read more about the masterclass programme and participants below. 

Another Urban Air Mobility masterclass will be held in autumn 2023 (date and location TBC). See also our online courses here: airmour-learningcentre.talentlms.com. 

Júlia Miczki from BKK Centre for Budapest Transport, the mobility manager of the city – and the responsible organization for the sustainable urban mobility planning (SUMP) for Budapest – told us that she wanted to learn about how to integrate urban air mobility (UAM) into their existing urban mobility system and the roles of the city planners and municipalities in the UAM implementation.

She felt that the masterclass provided an excellent opportunity to meet all the different fields of expertise involved in building up and testing real life emergency medical service (EMS) use cases with UAM solutions and to hear the AiRMOUR experts’ presentations, knowledge and visions about UAM.   

“The masterclass helped me to update my knowledge and it put it into a comprehensive context with respect to the regulation, the institutional and the operational level. It was interesting to learn about the public acceptance studies conducted about UAM, and for me it was a bit of a surprise that in general, citizens are thinking quite positively about UAM and how it could introduce new mobility solutions to their daily life”, she says.

“During the masterclass I had the impression, that it could be quite difficult for the different fields of expertise involved in UAM planning to find a common ground – not only in terms of the objectives, but in terms of understanding the differences in their mindsets and finding the best tools that can help them explain their thoughts to each other”, she says.

“Even the meaning of the same word could differ a lot. For example, ‘safety’ is itself a crucial part of sustainability in aviation, and also there is a robust strategic and operational system for safety for each aviation service provider. Meanwhile, in general road transport, safety and Vision Zero could be a long term objective, but it is still not considered as a basic condition for the sector’s and the operators’ survival. When we are talking about extending urban mobility from 2D into 3D, we need to address these differences when starting any stakeholder engagement processes.”

To conclude our interview Júlia Minczki also pointed out that: “Communication is and will be one of the most important enablers (or disablers) of the evolution of UAM, therefore, with the learnings from this masterclass I would try to help to build up step by step a realistic thinking about UAM within the urban planning community, and try to break down the silos of drones or the unrealistic safety and security concerns.” 

“Cities have an important role in building up an UAM ecosystem, and they definitely have responsibility in the ways how it will be implemented locally, and that the justification behind each UAM operation will meet the best acceptance and support of the local communities and stakeholders.”

“Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is the strategic transport authority for Greater Manchester and joined the AiRMOUR project as a replicator city. TfGM is currently developing its thinking and strategy around the future of urban mobility to enable its consideration in our SUMP and Innovation Prospectus. In Greater Manchester, there are no current examples of urban air mobility (UAM) and we have no previous experience with UAM projects”, Marie Godward says.

“We took part in the masterclass to learn more about the medical use case for drones and the impact they have on emergency medical responses. We already have an ongoing partnership with our National Health Service and are keen to work with them to establish how UAM could benefit EMS in the North West of England. We were also really interested to learn more about the results of the engagement activities and societal acceptance studies that took place in the project cities to understand readiness levels.”

“The masterclass was a brilliant learning opportunity to further expand my knowledge and understanding of the role which UAM can play in the healthcare sector. There was a range of different professions represented at the masterclass, spanning from urban planners to air traffic controllers and that led to very insightful presentations and discussions. We were also given the opportunity to put our learnings into practice during interactive sessions which were a great opportunity to think about the considerations which would need to be made and stakeholders who would need to be involved when planning a drone flight for a medical use case.”

“I had a basic level of understanding of UAM from attending the online training sessions held earlier in the year by AiRMOUR. It was very interesting to learn how UAM can be utilised to complement ground transport for EMS’ and in turn secure the performance and robustness of the response system. I also found it useful to learn more about the barriers to the innovation and rollout of UAM which included regulatory challenges, lack of testing sites in urban areas, associated risks, and infrastructure requirements.”

“What was surprising to learn was just how much the media can influence public perceptions of drones and how that can help or hinder overall acceptance.”

“Participation in the project as a replicator city offered TfGM and Greater Manchester valuable insight into the strengths, opportunities and weaknesses of UAM technology applications in the healthcare sector. We will also share insights gained from the masterclass and project outputs with other local authorities in the UK”, Marie Godward concludes.

Camilla Wikström from the City of Stockholm tells that she wanted to get a deeper overall knowledge of the current UAM development in relation to regulation, trends and use-cases. 

“I wanted to get a better idea of the role of the city in the context of UAM. It was an interesting two days with a lot of insights gained. It also opened up for discussions and networking.”

“I had a general knowledge about the topic beforehand but got the possibility to get a deeper understanding on the development of emergency services and how other stakeholders think.

I will share the knowledge with colleagues and local stakeholders. I will take the knowledge with me both for further internal work but also to current and future projects.”

The free event was held at EUROCONTROL’s aviation learning centre in Luxembourg. 27% of the participants’ organisations were from the aviation industry, 24% were cities or regions and 15% researchers, 12% were from the medical sector and 9% from the drone sector, 6% from the technology industry and 6% others (excluding AiRMOUR partners). 

There were 53 attendees, representing eleven countries: Luxembourg, Finland, U.K, France, Hungary, Poland, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Netherlands. 

See the programme here.

Another Urban Air Mobility masterclass will be held in autumn 2023 (date and location TBC). See also our online courses here: airmour-learningcentre.talentlms.com.