A Research Approach for Integrating Advanced Air Mobility into Transportation Planning

Abstract

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is emerging as a transformative transportation option for urban and regional areas, with the potential to substitute long intracity and intercity trips currently reliant on surface transportation. Public agencies are interested in understanding the potential integration of this emerging transportation mode into multimodal transportation system and how to effectively plan, manage, and optimize resources for current and future needs. In our previous study, we extended p-hub median problem to determine optimal vertiport locations and to estimate shifted AAM demand from ground modes by minimizing the total generalized travel cost of all passengers in the study case. That study solved a static and deterministic integrated AAM network design and demand estimation problem. In this study, we propose a research approach to integrate AAM into a statewide demand modeling and to achieve a new equilibrium of the multimodal transportation system with an iterative algorithm. To demonstrate the practicality of the proposed approach, we conducted a case study in the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, adapting the research approach to the Florida Statewide Model (FLSWM). Such enhanced statewide demand modeling provides centralized guidance on the development of vertiports and connections with other transportation modes. It can be used by public agencies to evaluate the impacts of technology advancement, infrastructure enhancement, and policy options.

Keywords: Urban Air Mobility, vertiport siting, network design, maximal covering location problem, Genetic Algorithm