A Life-Cycle Economic Study of eVTOL Air Taxi Service in the U.S. North-East Region

Abstract

The Urban/Advanced Air Mobility (UAM/AAM) transportation concept has been studied and shown to offer advantages in travel time-savings to individuals over the automobile, mass transit, and in many cases, commercial air transport alternatives. This paper presents a study of this new market using a parametric approach that accounts for the performance of Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft, takeoff and landing infrastructure (vertiports), and the demand for ridership given a ticket price and time saved. One of the key mode choice drivers in switching from existing transportation options to an AAM service is the value gained in saving time, which is also tightly correlated with people's income level. The analysis framework can facilitate market feasibility analysis by considering various scenarios and constraints. The results suggest that near-term profitability is possible even though vertiport throughput capacities are limited by existing footprint and operational constraints. Vertiport expansion can increase throughput and demand up to a point of maximum aircraft utilization. This new limit is due in part to ground turnaround time and battery charging requirements. Improvement in battery charging rates or implementing battery swap strategies could dramatically improve profitability while maximizing vehicle utilization. As operations increase to hundreds of flights at certain vertiports, local airspace congestion and aircraft vertiport mobility become the next bottleneck.