29 April 2022 || 3 min read
Urban-Air Port has just opened a transport hub for air taxis, eVTOLs, and drones at the Westminister Car Park in Coventry. The “Air-One” hub will allow manned and unmanned vehicles to take off and land at the world’s first vertiport, but only through the summer, after which it will be redeployed in a new location.
Above: Urban-Air Port’s vertiports are pop-ups, which can change locations depending on demand.
Urban-Air Port, the UK-based developer behind the project, says that this first vertiport will act as a blueprint for more than 200 vertiports planned worldwide in the next five years. Future vertiports have already been earmarked for other sites around the world, including in the West Midlands and London, as well as in Los Angeles, Australia, South Korea, France, Germany, Scandinavia and South East Asia. All the future vertiport locations are set to serve four key markets: flying taxis, autonomous delivery drones, disaster emergency management, and defense operations and logistics.
According to recent publications, Urban-Air Port took 11 weeks to erect the 17,000 square feet site in Coventry, which includes a passenger lounge, a café, a cargo logistics hub, an electric and hydrogen air vehicle hangar, a security screening area, and a command centre. The site features a 56ft circular platform that raises and lowers 19ft to enable future electric air vehicle takeoffs and landings.
The Air-One project has financial backing from the UK government as well as from Supernal, the aerial mobility arm of Hyundai Motor group. On the subject, Mike Whitaker, chief commercial officer at Supernal, said: “The Air-One activation is an important step for the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) industry and demonstrates how eVTOLs can easily integrate with existing transportation networks to address local needs.”
Why it’s important: As highlighted by Ricky Sandhu, founder and executive chairman of Urban-Air Port: “The opening of Air-One is a momentous occasion – the starting gun for a new age of transport, an age of zero-emission, low-congestion travel between and within cities that will make people healthier, happier and more connected than ever before.” He then went on to state that “the Coventry demonstration will showcase the future of how people will travel, seamlessly integrating with other modes of transport to create a greener, more connected future.”
Watch the full video tour of the Air One vertiport below:
Source // Yahoo News, Design Boom