Exploring the integration of urban air mobility into Mobility-as-a-Service: A stated preference analysis of commuters

This study introduces the concept of air mobility as a Service (AMaaS), integrating urban air mobility (UAM) into the framework of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS), with the goal of establishing highly synchronized mobility services. To facilitate the successful deployment of Urban Air Taxi (UAT) services, we aim to investigate people’s preferences for multimodal air taxi services. A stated choice experiment was designed incorporating pay-as-you-go options for various multimodal UAT services and subscriptions to ride-based discounts. Using data collected in Beijing, China, a random parameter error component model was estimated to identify preference heterogeneity among different individuals and potential correlations between alternatives. Our findings indicate a general preference for subscription schemes over pay-as-you-go options across all UAT services. The choice within AMaaS is significantly influenced by the various attributes of UAT alternatives and incentive measures, e.g., stronger government support and/or price discounts increase the probability of using AMaaS. Workers aged 44 or above, high-income groups, car owners, regular car commuters, individuals in managerial positions, and those having helicopter experience are more inclined to commute via multimodal UATs. These findings provide valuable insights for policy decision-making in the planning of UAM, especially when integrated into MaaS.