Operational Considerations regarding On-Demand Air Mobility: A Literature Review and Research Challenges

The idea and development of on-demand air mobility (ODAM) services are revolutionizing our urban/regional transportation sector by exploring the third dimension: vertical airspace. The fundamental concept of on-demand air taxi operations is not new, but advances in aircraft design and battery/engine technology plus massive problems with congestion and increased travel demands around the world have recently led to a large number of studies which aim to explore the potential benefits of ODAM. Unfortunately, given the lack of an established, formal problem definition, missing reference nomenclature for ODAM research, and a multitude of publication venues, the research development is not focused and, thus, does not tap the full potential of the workforce engaged in this topic. This study synthesizes the recently published literature on operational aspects of ODAM. Our contribution consists of two major parts. The first part dissects previous studies and performs cross-comparison of report results. We cover five main categories: demand estimation methodology, infrastructure/port design/location problem, operational planning problem, operational constraints’ identification, and competitiveness with other transportation modes. The second part complements the report of aggregated findings by proposing a list of challenges as a future agenda for ODAM research. Most importantly, we see a need for a formal problem definition of ODAM operational planning processes, standard open datasets for comparing multiple performance dimensions, and a universal, multimodal transportation demand model.