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The implementation of urban air mobility represents a complex challenge in aviation due to the high degree of innovation required across various domains to realize it. From the use of advanced aircraft powered by novel technologies, the management of the airspace to enable high density operations, to the operation of vertiports serving as a start and end point of the flights, urban air mobility paradigm necessitates significant innovation in many aspects of civil aviation as we know it today. To understand and assess the many facets of this new paradigm, a collaborative simulation is developed to holistically evaluate the system of systems through the modeling of the stakeholders and their interactions as per the envisioned concept of operations. To this end, models of vertiport air-side operations, unmanned/manned airspace management, demand estimation and passenger mode choice, vehicle operator cost and revenues, vehicle design, and fleet management are brought together into a system of systems simulation of urban air mobility. Through collaboration, higher fidelity models of each domain can be integrated into a single environment achieving fidelity levels not easily achievable otherwise. Furthermore, the integration enables the capture of cross-domain effects and allows domain-specific studies to be evaluated at a holistic level. This work demonstrates the collaborative simulation and the process of building it through the integration of several geographically distributed tools into an agent-based simulation without the need for sharing code.

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is a new air transportation system for passengers and cargo in urban environments, enabled by new technologies and integrated into multimodal transportation systems. The vision of UAM comprises the mass use in urban and suburban environments, complementing existing transportation systems and contributing to the decarbonization of the transport sector. Initial attempts to create a market for urban air transportation in the last century failed due to lack of profitability and community acceptance. Technological advances in numerous fields over the past few decades have led to a renewed interest in urban air transportation. UAM is expected to benefit users and to also have a positive impact on the economy by creating new markets and employment opportunities for manufacturing and operation of UAM vehicles and the construction of related ground infrastructure. However, there are also concerns about noise, safety and security, privacy and environmental impacts. Therefore, the UAM system needs to be designed carefully to become safe, affordable, accessible, environmentally friendly, economically viable and thus sustainable. This paper provides an overview of selected key research topics related to UAM and how the German Aerospace Center (DLR) contributed to this research in the project "HorizonUAM - Urban Air Mobility Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR)". Selected research results on the topics of market potential and public acceptance, vehicle design (including battery degradation, onboard systems, cabin design, cabin simulation), infrastructure, operations (including U-space, safe autonomy, navigation, communication, cost modeling) and overall system modeling are briefly presented.

Urban Air Mobility is expected to effectively complement the existing transportation system by providing fast and safe travel options, contributing to decarbonization, and providing benefits to citizens and communities. A preliminary estimate of the potential global demand for UAM, the associated aircraft movements, and the required vehicles is essential for the UAM industry for their long-term planning, but also of interest to other stakeholders, such as governments and transportation planners, to develop appropriate strategies and actions to implement UAM. This paper proposes a city-centric forecasting methodology that provides preliminary estimates of the potential global UAM demand for intra-city air taxi services for 990 cities worldwide. By summing all city-specific results, an estimate of the global UAM demand is obtained. By varying the parameters of the UAM system, the impact of ticket price and vertiport density on UAM demand is shown. Considering low ticket prices and high vertiport densities, possible market development scenarios show that there is a market potential for UAM in over 200 cities worldwide by 2050. The study highlights the significant impact of low ticket prices and the need for high vertiport densities to drive UAM demand. This emphasises the need for careful optimization of system components to minimise costs and increase the quality of UAM services.

Small Air Transport (SAT) is defined as services operated by airplanes with passenger capacity between 9 and 19 seats and pressurized and unpressurized cabin compartment. SAT currently represent a small niche of air transport services, but it has the potential for contributing to the connectivity of regions in Europe and the rest of the world. This paper introduces the strategic model DESAT (Demand for European Small Air Transport), designed and implemented to estimate demand for SAT services in Europe. The model covers 30 European countries (EU27, United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland). Its zoning system builds on the EUROSTAT NUTS 3 level classification (2021) and includes more than 1,400 zones.Within DESAT model, SAT is considered one of the available modes of transport for trips between zones, in competition with conventional air services, car, train, coach and, in some circumstance, ferry. SAT is an available alternative where some conditions apply, the most relevant one being that the distance between the zone falls within the operating range of SAT services. The model takes also into account that SAT services could be used as last or first leg of long trips, when direct connections provided by conventional air are not available until the final destination or origin. The focus of the DESAT model is the estimation of the market share of SAT services, however the overall number of trips by OD pair is also endogenously estimated to consider that the availability of SAT can affect the accessibility of some zones and change the patter of trips. The base year of the DESAT model is 2019. The model provides result for past year 2014 and for future years from 2025 to 2050 in five years steps. The main outputs of the DESAT model are the number of yearly SAT passengers and the corresponding number of flights, as well as the market share of SAT. The user interface provides aggregated indicators and some mapping of zone-based estimations, while results by OD pair are also produced and can be downloaded for more detailed analysis.

When it comes to international mobility, air connections are crucial for transporting passengers over long distances in the fastest possible way. This paper provides an analysis with focus on the investigation of connectivity and mobility changes in relation to mainliner air traffic considering the 200 cities with the largest GDP per capita on global scale. Following the results of previous studies that have shown a linkage between air connectivity and GDP development, this analysis examines flight schedule data from 2000 and 2019. From these findings, non-, one- and two-stop connections originating from the airports located in the surrounding area of the 200 cities considered were analyzed. Connectivity between the 200 cities with largest GDP per capita on global scale has increased by about 20% considering non-stop and about 6% considering one-stop connections. Growth of the connections of the cities under consideration mainly affected Europe as well as North America with East Asia. Geographical location and the range of aircraft types play a role in the possibility of direct connections. European cities are well connected, and only the frequency of connections has increased noticeably between 2000 and 2019. The use of small air transport could further increase connectivity. Based on the East Asian growth figures of the past years, a trend for the future can be derived, according to which increasing demand on routes to Europe and North America will increase the need for long-haul aircraft to serve demand through direct flights.