Innovation in Ground & Air Mobility @ Intertraffic 

Last week I attended Intertraffic - a mobility event on Traffic Management and Road Safety, Smart Mobility, Air Mobility, Parking and Ground Infrastructure. These are my highlights, divided into Ground Mobility 🚘 and Air Mobility 🚁: 

Ground Mobility 🚘

Elmo presented live cross-border teledriving by driving a Nissan Leaf located in Estonia, over 2,100 km from the event in Amsterdam. Latency was around 100-150 milliseconds, with Elmo using the 4G network to control the vehicle, which was situated in a big parking lot. The company is also launching a teledriven truck, working with RSG International in Ontario, Canada, on open highway work zones (non-public road sections). Jamie West from RSG spoke about the inclusion teledriving can provide - from easy WFH to wheel-chair users that can choose to work as drivers. No, I did not get to drive. Enn, next time? 

Uber takes another bite into transportation, with Adrian @ Uber Transit tackling DRT’s shortcomings in a speaking session. Uber offers cities a car-based DRT / Public Transportation operation, set up in weeks (named “Asset-free DRT”); or a service connected to the existing DRT operator, as it does in Dallas, channelling demand from unavailable DRT vans to Uber cars, when needed (“Elastic DRT”). When is Elastic DRT needed? When DRT vehicles are too busy, or too far away, or simply to supplement hours of operations. I like the Elastic model, because it tackles real DRT disadvantages. 

Every year, students from the Eindhoven University of Technology build a car via the TU/ecomotive project. Last year it was a net zero car, this year they built a car that lives forever!. The chassis has all the mechanical and electric components needed for the car to run, and the top is swappable. Esther told me that there are 30 students working on the project, which is due to be completed in July. 

sCOOL2Walk is a shared walking solution for children, a part of the Future Mobility Network (FMN). The solution allows parents to manage their child's walk to school, assuring there is a responsible adult where needed. This EIT Urban Mobility project was piloted in Barcelona, Riga (Latvia) and Siggiewi (Malta), and more pilots are expected soon. The FMN, a Netherlands based mobility consultancy / venture -builder, had another project displayed at the event, a curb digitalisation product called Coding The Curb. 

Maarten Sierhuis, Head of Nissan’s Advanced Technology Centre, gave a talk about “Resilient Autonomous Driving”, highlighting the importance of human intervention in autonomous driving. He gave the example of the Waymo “hose” incident - video - which shows how AVs fail to interact with emergency services. Talking about the Cruise incident (timeline in picture) , teleoperators were not useful, being able to take control 1.8 seconds after the initial hit, they did not have a good enough understanding of the situation. 

Key takeaways from the “How to nurture MaaS through adolescence” panel by Rosanne @ Dutch government, Tania @ 9292, Thijs @ Gaiyo and Gemma @ City of Amsterdam. Key takeaways: the B2C model failed, MaaS is struggling even with the B2B & B2G models. What wasn’t covered: how governments can actually help MaaS through adolescence.

And two other products I found interesting: 

Graphmasters is a traffic flow app (think Waze) focusing on collaborative routing - i.e. the state of users’ traffic directs the algorithm's route recommendations. Data can be supplemented with external data, such as Google Maps traffic status, to account for all road users. The company focuses on the B2B events market, where irregular demand can greatly “throw off” existing navigation solutions.

Omniflow is a smart lighting solution which I found cool. It is a solar and wind device installed on existing/new poles, allowing for 90% saving on electricity consumption. Founded in Portugal, the solution is present in 35 countries. 

I love meeting new people, learning about mobility innovation and exchanging opinions. Want to get-to-know and talk mobility? Let’s set up a half-hour coffee chat. 

Air Mobility 🚁

I attended a number of panels, three of them elaborated below. Key takeaways: 

• eVTOLs will begin commercial flights circa 2025-2026

• Focus will be on emergency services, airport taxi and touristic use cases 

• These flights will not be autonomous anytime in the foreseeable future (possibly excluding China)

• Urban planners will wait for consumer demand to increase, and for the private sector to lead demand for urban landscape change. This excludes emergency services (medical, police) which will be supported by cities from day one. 

• Delivery drones face challenges from regulators, mostly in the EU, on both an air space level and the ground infrastructure level.

The “Future of eVTOLs” panel saw C-level leaders, such as Dirk Hoke from Volocopter, Balkiz Sarihan from Airbus, and more C-level executives from EHang, Lilium, Wisk and Thales. All eVTOLs share a similar focus: getting certified while building a safe, sustainable and noise-free means of transport. 

A shared challenge the industry is facing is battery tech. Not battery supply itself - eVTOL companies (as are OEMs) are very competitive & protective over battery supply chain so it is an individual challenge for each company - but on the tech that will allow for longer ranges and higher passenger capacity, with safer batteries. It was interesting to hear Volocopter’s CEO say that it would take years for battery tech to achieve much beyond what we see in designs today. 

Autonomy was also in the air. EHang’s vehicle is already autonomous, running on predefined routes, supervised by remote-pilots; Wisk, by Boeing, is building a fully autonomous generation-6 aircraft, to be their 1st commercial model, also to be used as an air taxi. 

The industry wants to operate “wherever there is traffic”, but all realistically agree that vehicles will be first used by emergency services, with an emphasis on medical; for airport taxis; and in some instances, in rural / out of the city areas, providing advanced mobility to residents and tourists. There was an agreement that eVTOLs are a complementary solution to existing solutions, a tool in the mobility toolbox. And no mention of helicopters. 

On passenger experience, it falls second to certification needs. On air, every kilogram counts, as it was made clear by Volocopter and Wisk. Some talked highly about allowing a ride-hailing experience, which I thought was just a person looking down at the phone or talking to the driver. I’m guessing the passenger experience will sum up to having a tablet with web connectivity.

OK - when will we have commercial flights? Volocopter is expected to operate commercially in the Olympics this year; EHang and Lilium aim for 2026(ish); Wisk toward the end of the decade; and Airbus won’t commit on a date. 

The “Urban Vision AAM'' panel, by city urban planners from cities such as Amsterdam, Helsinki and Madrid, explored the often-unheard side of urban planners. Cities, at least the big cities, are thinking about how to integrate “flying cars” in the city sky, Subject to whatever regulation the central government will impose. Key takeaway: (1) cities will wait for demand and the private sector to move in before making any big changes; and (2) emergency services have planning priority and will not have to wait for the private sector to kick-in, as cities are interested to provide faster emergency services solution.

The “Implementing Drone Logistics” saw leaders from RigiTech, Wing, FOCA, Amazon, Dufour and Matternet mostly discuss the regulatory hardships, specifically in Europe, both in terms of offering adequate air space and in infrastructure. For example, drone urban air space is confirmed to a specific piece of air, not altitude, therefore not allowing scaling operations. For infrastructure, cities do not allocate public space, but then also block needed building permits (such as fences) on private land.