New Study on Vertiport Planning for Urban Air Mobility Accepted in Transportation Research Part A

We are pleased to announce that our latest research on Urban Air Mobility (UAM) has been accepted for publication in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice (5 March 2026).

The paper, “Vertiport Location Planning for Urban Air Mobility Airport Shuttle Services under Demand Uncertainty,” is authored by Gideon Gottschalg and Arne K. Strauss (Mercator Endowed Chair of Demand Management and Sustainable Transport, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management), Nikola Ivanov and Bojana Mirković (Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University of Belgrade), and Juan Blasco Puyuelo (Nommon Solutions and Technologies, Madrid).

The study addresses a central question for future Urban Air Mobility services: how many vertiports should be built, where should they be located, and how large should the eVTOL fleet be—when passenger demand is still highly uncertain? To answer this, the authors develop a risk-aware two-stage optimization framework that integrates long-term infrastructure decisions (vertiport locations and fleet size) with operational flight scheduling under different demand scenarios. The model explicitly incorporates financial risk and allows investors to hedge against the probability of losses.

Using real-world passenger data from the Madrid metropolitan area and Madrid-Barajas Airport, the study provides several important insights. A risk-averse planning approach can reduce the probability of financial loss from around one-third to below 10% compared to deterministic planning methods. Moreover, some vertiport locations that may initially appear counterintuitive—such as sites in less densely populated areas—can enhance overall profitability by effectively aggregating demand.

The results further indicate that route extensions due to airspace restrictions have only a limited impact on profitability, and that prioritizing maximum vehicle speed when selecting eVTOL models offers only modest economic gains. In addition, partial use of existing heliport infrastructure emerges as a viable strategy to reduce investment costs without substantially compromising network performance.

Overall, the findings provide actionable guidance for UAM operators, airports, and city authorities considering early-stage airport shuttle services. By explicitly accounting for demand uncertainty and financial risk, the framework supports more robust and economically viable infrastructure decisions.