Urban air mobility: level of service framework for the performance-based evaluation of vertidrome airside operations

Kurzfassung

As the urban air mobility (UAM) industry matures, the need for a comprehensive evaluation framework to assess its performance from a transport service perspective becomes increasingly important. This dissertation contributes to the dynamically changing landscape of UAM by focusing on vertidromes, UAM-tailored ground infrastructure for passenger transport services provided by (electric) vertical take-off and landing capable aircraft. A systematic literature review of more than 190 sources has identified fundamental knowledge and key principles for the design and integration of vertidromes into the airspace. However, significant research gaps remain, particularly in the areas of cost estimation, safety assessment, regulatory guidance, weather dependency, noise impact, and security assessment. The key innovation of this dissertation is the development and validation of the Vertidrome Airside Level of Service (VALoS) framework. The VALoS is a UAM service-oriented, performance-based approach to evaluate the airside traffic flow of a given vertidrome design, taking into account the service requirements and operational performance targets of the vertidrome stakeholders. Based on the current state of the art, an exemplary vertidrome layout and airside operational concept were developed and used as a reference to analyze the applicability of the VALoS framework. Through fast-time simulation validation, the VALoS framework - evaluated at 15-minute intervals and tailored to the key stakeholders passenger, air taxi operator, and vertidrome operator - provides valuable insights to support strategic decision making and operational planning under nominal, disturbed and disrupted conditions. In addition, the impact of changing wind conditions on vertidrome operations was investigated. By analyzing historical METAR wind data for two potential vertidrome locations, Munich Airport and Hamburg Airport, the VALoS framework shows the weather impact on UAM operations, enabling informed decision to be made about vertidrome operating hours and restrictions, the impact on vertidrome airside traffic flows, and profitable UAM routes. The VALoS metric is therefore able to indicate both the performance degradation and the suitability of a particular vertidrome location. The results of this dissertation underline the ability of the VALoS framework to effectively contribute to the strategic airside design phase of future UAM vertidromes. With the Vertidrome Airside Level of Service framework, it is possible to quantitatively measure the airside performance of future UAM ground infrastructure and to ensure that vertidrome operations meet stakeholder expectations, address the right business cases, enable demand-driven scalability, and target long-term sustainability from an infrastructure construction perspective. The VALoS framework supports vertidrome planners and operators to ensure the "use case right" design and operation of vertidromes. It lays the foundation for a sustainable and efficient vertidrome ecosystem design, contributing to the successful development and implementation of UAM.