Awareness and Preparedness Levels of Public-Use NPIAS Ohio Airports Toward Integration of Advanced Air Mobility Technologies

Date and Time: Wednesday, May 17: 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Location: Atrium

Jacob Shila

Bowling Green State University

PRESENTATION DESCRIPTION

Ohio vehicular traffic has been growing at a rate of 8% annually since 2000, much higher than the rate population growth, which has been 3%. The related safety and traffic delay costs have amounted to about $3.9 billion/year and $4.6 billion/year, respectively. Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) could potentially alleviate some of these costs by assisting with transport of passengers and cargo in areas that aren’t currently conveniently by land transportation and/or are underserved by the aviation network. AAM operations range from air taxi operations, medical air ambulance, cargo and logistics delivery, regional air mobility, and others. Given the unconventional designs of the involved aircraft (such as vertical takeoff and landing, electric charging, etc.), a requirement for and readiness assessment of existing airport facilities to integrate AAM operations is imperative. Although AAM technologies require newly established infrastructure, such as vertiports and electric charging stations, it is also expected that existing public use general aviation airports would also assist with the adoption of AAM operations prior to full establishment of vertiports. Studies indicate, for instance, that Ohio would need about 81 vertiports over the next 25 years to further the AAM operations. Nationwide, only about 30% of the 5000 public use airports serve about 70% of all the travelers nationwide; hence, there is significant potential for AAM technologies to utilize public use airports. In this study, we survey airport managers in charge of public use airports in the state of Ohio to obtain their input on the levels of awareness and preparedness as related to the topic of Advanced Air Mobility. Currently, the state of Ohio consists of 154 public use airports, of which 97 are part of the National Plan of Integrated Airport System (NPIAS). The Capability Maturity Framework that utilizes three Critical Success Factors for AAM is used. These factors are Airport Awareness of the technology, General Preparedness of the Airport for the introduction of the technology, and the Airport Infrastructure Preparedness. Using the multi-level fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method, the aggregated maturity levels of the airports are calculated. This model may be a useful tool for the airport operators who are considering potential venture into AAM operations

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Jacob earned his Ph.D. in Technology at Purdue University. He completed his bachelor's in aerospace engineering before obtaining his MS in Aviation and Aerospace Management at Purdue University. Jacob teaches numerous courses in the areas of aviation management, airline planning and economics, airport operations and administration, and airport planning and design. With research interests spanning sustainability, environmental impacts of aviation operations, and techno-economic modeling of aviation operations, Jacob researches a variety of technologies that can be applied to reduce the environmental impacts of the aviation operations – for both aircraft and airports operations. Prior to joining academia, Jacob worked in the emissions industry as a CO2 exhaust emissions simulations specialist for Volkswagen of North America developing computational models to examine a variety of scenarios that can lead to emissions regulations’ compliance while maintaining financial profitability.

PRESENTATION FILE