Skip to main content

Mott MacDonald and UrbanV plan to fly high with AAM projects

Companies set to develop vertiports for 'fast, efficient, safe and clean' transport option
By Adam Hill November 10, 2023 Read time: 2 mins
Global ambition: Mott MacDonald and UrbanV (image: Mott MacDonald | UrbanV)

Mott MacDonald and vertiport designer UrbanV are partnering to develop advanced air mobility (AAM) infrastructure worldwide. 

AAM uses electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to move people and goods, and UrbanV plans to enable a route from Fiumicino Airport to Rome city centre by the end of 2024.

Mott MacDonald is already working across the world on several projects, and supported a consortium planning a network of at least 25 vertiports in the UK.

Project principal Horacio Rossi says: “Our team has experience of developing the strategic direction for vertiports, through to masterplans for its size, terminal buildings, energy centre, airfield layout, and safe and efficient operations, as well as crucial connections with other modes of transport."

Carlo Tursi, CEO of UrbanV, says the company - established by Aeroporti di Roma, Save Group, Aeroports de la Côte d’Azur and Aeroporto di Bologna - wants to be a global operator of vertiport networks, "starting from Italy and France, where we are working together with our founding shareholders to establish some of the first AAM routes worldwide".

AAM is "a fast, efficient, safe and clean alternative to existing transport solutions for people and goods over short distances, by air", he adds.

According to Precedence Research, the global market size of AAM was valued at $8.9$ billion last year and is projected to be worth around $45.12 billion by 2030.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Project CROCODILE wins award for smart use of data
    May 16, 2016
    Project CROCODILE, which was launched in 2013 to establish a trans-national data exchange infrastructure to end breakdown of cross-border traffic has won the 2016 Transport Achievement Award in the freight category. The prize is awarded by the International Transport Forum (ITF), a Paris-based intergovernmental organisation and policy think tank with 57 member countries. The project is co-financed by the European Union’s TEN-T programme and aimed to establish a framework to collect and exchange data for
  • PTV Group helps unleash EU’s project Upper
    August 9, 2023
    Making public transport more attractive will help advance zero-emissions mobility
  • Brooklyn eyes Bogota’s BRT system
    June 17, 2016
    David Crawford considers the increased interest in bus rapid transit and looks that the latest trends. Bus rapid transit (BRT) is gaining an increasingly high profile in the US public transport agenda, for two main reasons. One is the potential for ‘trains on wheels’ to save substantially on installation costs as compared with other modes such as underground metros or light-rail transit. Another, highlighted in the case of New York City, is the value of having a rapid surface-based alternative available whe
  • EBRD funds new transport master planning standards for Romania
    August 5, 2014
    In July 2014, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) awarded funds of around US$1.8 million for the development of sustainable mobility master plans in Romania. The EBRD is the largest institutional investor in Romania. To date, the Bank has invested US$8.9 billion across 364 projects in diverse sectors including industry, commerce, agribusiness, infrastructure, energy and finance.