Impact of Airspace Restrictions on Urban Air Mobility Commuter Demand Potential

This study aims to understand the impact of airspace restrictions on Urban Air Mobility (UAM) commuter demand potential in the New York City region. The potential for UAM is higher in congested cities with substantial commuter populations, but often these cities are served by one or more airports with congested airspaces encompassing over a large part of the urban area. The integration between commercial airspaces and future UAM airspace is among the major challenges to overcome. This study analyzes UAM demand potential with three scenarios of airspace restrictions- No Restrictions, Class-B restrictions only, Class-B/D restrictions. Close to 10 million commuters reside in the New York City area. The city is served by three major commercial airports (JFK, EWR, LGA), making it ideal for this study. A UAM demand estimation framework is built to estimate UAM demand potential for different scenarios. The airspace restrictions significantly affect the UAM demand potential by resulting in less optimal placement of vertiports and increased travel distances. Based on the UAM fares used in the simulation, the airspace restrictions decrease UAM demand by 40% - 57%, compared to the unrestricted scenarios.