IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v148y2021icp506-524.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Commuter demand estimation and feasibility assessment for Urban Air Mobility in Northern California

Author

Listed:
  • Rimjha, Mihir
  • Hotle, Susan
  • Trani, Antonio
  • Hinze, Nicolas

Abstract

This study aims to estimate passenger demand for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and analyze the feasibility of operating the system in Northern California. UAM is a concept mode of transportation that is designed to bypass ground congestion for time-sensitive, price-inelastic travelers using autonomous, electric aircraft with Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) capabilities. This study focuses specifically on commuting trips, which are frequent and considered relatively more time-sensitive than other types of personal trips. The UAM mode's feasibility is studied using sensitivity analysis of UAM demand to cost per passenger mile and the number of vertiports placed in the region. This study also explores the spatial distribution of UAM demand in Northern California, which further helps in identifying the major commuter trip-attraction and trip-production zones for the UAM mode in the region. The results indicate that sufficient UAM demand for commuting trips can only be reached at optimistically low UAM offered fares. These fare levels could be challenging to obtain given the high real estate cost in Northern California's urban regions. Moreover, the reliability of the UAM mode must be comparable to the automobile mode; otherwise, it loses significant demand with increasing delays. The results also show that the commuting flows with promising UAM demand in Northern California are heavily one-directional, with San Francisco Financial District being a major attraction. Other types of trips should also be considered along with commuting trips to generate an economically viable system and reduce deadheading.

Suggested Citation

  • Rimjha, Mihir & Hotle, Susan & Trani, Antonio & Hinze, Nicolas, 2021. "Commuter demand estimation and feasibility assessment for Urban Air Mobility in Northern California," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 506-524.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:148:y:2021:i:c:p:506-524
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2021.03.020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856421000823
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2021.03.020?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carrion, Carlos & Levinson, David, 2012. "Value of travel time reliability: A review of current evidence," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 720-741.
    2. Greene, William H. & Hensher, David A., 2007. "Heteroscedastic control for random coefficients and error components in mixed logit," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 610-623, September.
    3. Larranaga, Ana Margarita & Arellana, Julian & Senna, Luiz Afonso, 2017. "Encouraging intermodality: A stated preference analysis of freight mode choice in Rio Grande do Sul," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 202-211.
    4. Börjesson, Maria & Fosgerau, Mogens & Algers, Staffan, 2012. "On the income elasticity of the value of travel time," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 368-377.
    5. Cherchi, Elisabetta & Ortúzar, Juan de Dios, 2006. "On fitting mode specific constants in the presence of new options in RP/SP models," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-18, January.
    6. Ahmed, Sheikh Shahriar & Fountas, Grigorios & Eker, Ugur & Still, Stephen E. & Anastasopoulos, Panagiotis Ch, 2021. "An exploratory empirical analysis of willingness to hire and pay for flying taxis and shared flying car services," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    7. Train,Kenneth E., 2009. "Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521747387.
    8. Li, Zhi-Chun & Sheng, Dian, 2016. "Forecasting passenger travel demand for air and high-speed rail integration service: A case study of Beijing-Guangzhou corridor, China," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 397-410.
    9. Winter, Scott R. & Rice, Stephen & Lamb, Tracy L., 2020. "A prediction model of Consumer's willingness to fly in autonomous air taxis," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    10. Arne Risa Hole, 2007. "Fitting mixed logit models by using maximum simulated likelihood," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(3), pages 388-401, September.
    11. Li, Weibo & Kamargianni, Maria, 2018. "Providing quantified evidence to policy makers for promoting bike-sharing in heavily air-polluted cities: A mode choice model and policy simulation for Taiyuan-China," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 277-291.
    12. Al Haddad, Christelle & Chaniotakis, Emmanouil & Straubinger, Anna & Plötner, Kay & Antoniou, Constantinos, 2020. "Factors affecting the adoption and use of urban air mobility," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 696-712.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brunelli, Matteo & Ditta, Chiara Caterina & Postorino, Maria Nadia, 2023. "New infrastructures for Urban Air Mobility systems: A systematic review on vertiport location and capacity," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    2. Kyowon Song, 2022. "Optimal Vertiport Airspace and Approach Control Strategy for Urban Air Mobility (UAM)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-21, December.
    3. Long, Qi & Ma, Jun & Jiang, Feifeng & Webster, Christopher John, 2023. "Demand analysis in urban air mobility: A literature review," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    4. Annitsa Koumoutsidi & Ioanna Pagoni & Amalia Polydoropoulou, 2022. "A New Mobility Era: Stakeholders’ Insights regarding Urban Air Mobility," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-18, March.
    5. Brunelli, Matteo & Ditta, Chiara Caterina & Postorino, Maria Nadia, 2023. "SP surveys to estimate Airport Shuttle demand in an Urban Air Mobility context," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 129-139.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Merkert, Rico & Beck, Matthew J. & Bushell, James, 2021. "Will It Fly? Adoption of the road pricing framework to manage drone use of airspace," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 156-170.
    2. Long, Qi & Ma, Jun & Jiang, Feifeng & Webster, Christopher John, 2023. "Demand analysis in urban air mobility: A literature review," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    3. Günay, Gürkan, 2023. "Shipment size and vehicle choice modeling for road freight transport: A geographical perspective," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    4. Rath, Srushti & Chow, Joseph Y.J., 2022. "Air taxi skyport location problem with single-allocation choice-constrained elastic demand for airport access," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    5. Ortega, David L. & Wang, H. Holly & Wu, Laping & Hong, Soo Jeong, 2015. "Retail channel and consumer demand for food quality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 359-366.
    6. Yamada, Katsunori & Sato, Masayuki, 2013. "Another avenue for anatomy of income comparisons: Evidence from hypothetical choice experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 35-57.
    7. Grzybowski, Lukasz & Hasbi, Maude & Liang, Julienne, 2018. "Transition from copper to fiber broadband: The role of connection speed and switching costs," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 1-10.
    8. Carlos Omar Trejo-Pech & Roselia Servín-Juárez & Álvaro Reyes-Duarte, 2023. "What sets cooperative farmers apart from non-cooperative farmers? A transaction cost economics analysis of coffee farmers in Mexico," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 11(1), pages 1-24, December.
    9. Qian, Lixian & Grisolía, Jose M. & Soopramanien, Didier, 2019. "The impact of service and government-policy attributes on consumer preferences for electric vehicles in China," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 70-84.
    10. Yavas, Volkan & Yavaş Tez, Özge, 2023. "Consumer intention over upcoming utopia: Urban air mobility," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    11. Pons-Prats, Jordi & Živojinović, Tanja & Kuljanin, Jovana, 2022. "On the understanding of the current status of urban air mobility development and its future prospects: Commuting in a flying vehicle as a new paradigm," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    12. Carlos Barros, 2012. "Sustainable Tourism in Inhambane-Mozambique," CEsA Working Papers 105, CEsA - Centre for African and Development Studies.
    13. Zgheib, Najib & Abou-Zeid, Maya & Kaysi, Isam, 2020. "Modeling demand for ridesourcing as feeder for high capacity mass transit systems with an application to the planned Beirut BRT," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 70-91.
    14. Arne Hole & Julie Kolstad, 2012. "Mixed logit estimation of willingness to pay distributions: a comparison of models in preference and WTP space using data from a health-related choice experiment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 445-469, April.
    15. Yan, Zhen & Zhou, Jie-hong, 2015. "Measuring consumer heterogeneous preferences for pork traits under media reports: choice experiment in sixteen traceability pilot cities, China," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 212609, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Liesivaara, Petri & Myyrä, Sami, 2014. "Government policies in changing climate and the demand for crop insurance," 88th Annual Conference, April 9-11, 2014, AgroParisTech, Paris, France 170520, Agricultural Economics Society.
    17. Brunelli, Matteo & Ditta, Chiara Caterina & Postorino, Maria Nadia, 2023. "SP surveys to estimate Airport Shuttle demand in an Urban Air Mobility context," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 129-139.
    18. Szabó, Andrea & Pham, Vinh, 2022. "Net neutrality and consumer demand in the video on-demand market," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    19. Matthew J. Baker, 2014. "Adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling and estimation in Mata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 14(3), pages 623-661, September.
    20. Johannes Geyer & Thorben Korfhage, 2015. "Long‐term Care Insurance and Carers' Labor Supply – A Structural Model," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(9), pages 1178-1191, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:148:y:2021:i:c:p:506-524. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.