Urban Air Mobility Association Switzerland (UAMAS)

Thanks to the progress in technology, new fields evolve. In aviation, with combining electric propulsion, state-of-the-art battery technology and autopilot systems with Artificial Intelligence (AI), so called electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircrafts can solve the traffic challenges in high population density areas. Switzerland, with having a highly efficient inner-city public transport system and lower density, obviously has a significantly lower need for urban air mobility (UAM). Nevertheless, the geography with the Alps and lakes lead in indirect trips between cities. Air taxis with direct routes can reduce travel time of door-to-door mobility. A trip from Geneva Airport to Gstaad, for example, could reduce the travel time from 163 minutes by train to less than 30 min. People living in Switzerland and older than five years invest more than ninety minutes per day for mobility. The ones with a monthly household income of more than 12’000 CHF have a median of 51.6 km per day, which is over 40 % more as the whole population. That travel time is not efficient: statistics from 2015 shows that the average speed using trains is only 62.2 km/h, even worse by car with 37.1 km/h. Already today, helicopters are used for inner-city transportation in metropoles as Sao Paulo or New York. Starting from 2020 eVTOL pilot projects for inner-city transportation are expected and a few years later, higher autonomy ensure transportation between cities. In comparison to the average speed of cars and trains in Switzerland, eVTOL with significantly higher average speeds and the ability for direct routes, bring a huge reduction of travel time. Today, the efforts towards UAM are still small but increasing. The public awareness is minimal so far. With UAMAS, we want to change that by connecting stakeholders to work together on challenges like air space management and noise pollution, to just mention two. Furthermore, we are a competence center for any question from the public.