Flying Cars
Uber’s ambitious plan announced earlier this
year to trial an aerial taxi service in Melbourne
is supposedly quite feasible from a tech
perspective, according to a civil engineering
expert. Mobility As A Service (MaaS)
MaaS brings together every kind of transport
into a single intuitive mobile app. It seamlessly
combines transport options from different
providers, handling everything from travel
planning to payments.
The rideshare company said test flights were
due to start from 2020 and plans were for
commercial operations to begin from 2023. There are so many ways to travel when you
think about it: walking, cycling, taking the
bus, catching the train, driving, riding as a
passenger, taxi, renting a car, carsharing,
bikesharing, ridesharing, ridesourcing, etc. The
general principle behind MaaS is streamlining
your plans into the most efficient and economic
solutions possible, but is it really something
fleets are seriously considering right now?
Jake Whitehead, a University of Queensland
researcher who specialises in transport,
said the timeline was achievable from a
technological perspective.
“We are very close to the point that battery
technologies can support these kinds of
smaller vehicles,” Dr Whitehead said. “What
will be the challenge is the regulation.”
“I’d hate to see us be in a position where
it’s a repeat of Uber ground vehicles where
governments aren’t adequately prepared for
this technology, and aren’t proactively working
with these companies to look at how to make
sure that we can benefit from this technology,
and not end up in a situation where it’s
absolute chaos.”
If successful the Uber Air plan could see
passengers whisked from the CBD to
Melbourne airport in just 10 minutes – a
fraction of the time it can take via a typical
19km road route (approx. 25 minutes or 1
hour in peak). Pricing at this stage remains
unknown, but for employees with tight time
pressures it could become a very convenient
prospect for the future.
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Recent research by Arval shows only a few
businesses are willing to give up the company
car option in exchange for a mobility solution
instead. In the report just 7% of fleet decision-
makers and employees said “probably” or
“certainly” move to car-sharing in place of their
current vehicle, although that figure was slightly
higher among large companies with more than
1000 employees.
“As our research shows, corporate interest
in mobility solutions is high”, said Shaun
Sadlier, Head of Arval’s Mobility Observatory.
“However, the company car looks set to
remain the core transport method for the
foreseeable future.”
The reasons, he believes, are simple:
employees value the benefits of a company
car; and for a typical multi-stop journey, cars
remain the only practical option.