Adoption of access and egress mode to air transport: a comparison of Italian and German study cases

Kurzfassung

Innovative Air Mobility (IAM) is an emerging aviation service designed to operate within multimodal urban systems. Since IAM relies on vertiports and on ground-based transport for first- and last-mile connectivity, the access and egress network is critical to its feasibility. This paper assesses the readiness of the existing ground transport network to accommodate vertiports in two study areas: the Campania Region in Italy and the Metropolitan Area of Hamburg in Germany. The two areas embody two distinct vertiport siting strategies: the reuse of existing infrastructures (IT) and accessibility-based localisation of new sites (DE) . For each origin vertiport pair and each value of time, the mode minimising the generalised cost of access is identified, and the two strategies are compared through indicators of the resulting access network. The analysis shows that IAM risks aggravating ground congestion where the public transport network is inadequate, and that inappropriate vertiport location can compromise the accessibility of the entire IAM service. Vertiport placement and the readiness of the ground transport network thus emerge as preconditions for IAM to deliver its expected mobility and sustainability benefits.