Urban air mobility will be part of the solution for heavily congested city centers across the world. Volocopter, the pioneer of urban air mobility (UAM), the infrastructures’ holding company Atlantia and Aeroporti di Roma, have announced their partnership to bring electric air taxis to Rome.
As an entirely new mobility service, it offers transportation for people and goods that is battery powered and thus emission free in flight. Together with the Italian authorities and regulators and with Atlantia’s full support, Aeroporti di Roma, and Volocopter will raise public awareness about UAM and pave the way to bring it to Italy within the next 2-3 years. In particular, the new service will connect the international hub “Leonardo da Vinci” with various places in Rome, through vertical airports. This will allow to travel in comfort and quality, reducing greatly both the congestion of urban traffic and CO2 emissions, as the 18 engines of VoloCity operate in electric mode.
Volocopter takes a holistic approach to UAM by developing a full ecosystem that connects the necessary components to offer electric flight in cities. The German company is the only eVTOL developer with a product portfolio of multicopter and fixed-wing designs that can be used for passenger and cargo transportation. Through cross-industrial partnerships, Volocopter covers all the aspects of the UAM ecosystem including the aircraft, the operations, as well as the digital infrastructure, VoloIQ, enabling large-scale digital visibility of the entire ecosystem.
“We have proven again and again – said Christian Bauer— CCO, Volocopter – that our aircraft are flying fully-scaled. Now, we are currently focusing on putting the UAM ecosystem in place in several cities, just like Rome, to host our fully electric mobility solutions upon certification. There could not be any better partners to bring this exciting mode of mobility to Italy than ADR, who are recognized to be one of the most innovative and sustainable airports in Europe».