Evaluation of business travel as a potential customer field of a local AAM market

Abstract

Several studies examine Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) demand focusing on commuting and airport shuttle trips at this moment. Little activities are concentrating on business travel in general nor for AAM demand in special. Business travel as a generic term for any corporate purposed transport consists of four categories: Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE). Every business traffic comes along with its own character which has to be considered when modelling. After the transport generation based on their travel purpose and location, a discrete choice model evaluates different modes of transport to determine the market share for AAM. As business travel is expected to have a greater value of time, the modal share of AAM is anticipated be higher compared to more cost-sensitive use cases such as commuting. On the other hand, however, the market size of the overall business traffic could weaken this group of potential AAM passengers. In the field of this poorly investigated demand share, this approach presents a possibility of modeling local business traffic. Furthermore, this study assumes an adopted AAM mode of transport for this passenger group, which helps to understand the characteristics of future AAM demand.