Air taxis before the first passenger
Urban air mobility, eVTOL aircraft and vertiports appear on 24 recent papers in the operations research and AI journals, with 10 in the last quarter against about 4 per quarter before. The first commercial air taxi services are being certified. Where do the routing and scheduling models get their demand numbers, and would anyone pay the fares the models assume?
What prompted this
Since October 2025, 24 papers carry an urban-air-mobility, eVTOL, air-taxi or vertiport keyword (20 in operations research journals, 4 in AI): "urban air mobility" on 20, "eVTOL" on 5, "eVTOL aircraft" on 4, "vertiports" on 2. The quarter to September 2026 had 10 such papers against about 4 per quarter earlier.
Questions
- What demand assumptions do the vertiport location and fleet scheduling models use, and how do they compare with stated-preference surveys and the fares the operators have announced?
- At realistic battery, pilot and vertiport costs, which city pairs break even, and how many passengers per day do they need?
- Do the models account for noise and airspace constraints that have blocked earlier urban aviation?
Data that could help
Operators' published fares and routes, stated-preference surveys on willingness to pay, helicopter service data as a benchmark, and cost estimates from certification filings.
Next step
Collect the demand and cost assumptions from the recent urban air mobility optimization papers and compare them with the fares and costs disclosed by operators preparing to launch.