Skip to main content

Atkins and Vertical Aerospace to develop air taxi services

Atkins has joined forces with electric aircraft company Vertical Aerospace in the UK city of Bristol to develop intercity air taxi services. The partners are aiming to develop a blueprint for urban air mobility, with Atkins designing the system and infrastructure around the air vehicle. Atkins says the blueprint will cover aviation infrastructure, passenger experience, operating models, intelligent mobility and cyber security. Philip Hoare, president of Atkins, says the development of a system i
May 31, 2019 Read time: 1 min

1677 Atkins has joined forces with electric aircraft company Vertical Aerospace in the UK city of Bristol to develop intercity air taxi services.

The partners are aiming to develop a blueprint for urban air mobility, with Atkins designing the system and infrastructure around the air vehicle.

Atkins says the blueprint will cover aviation infrastructure, passenger experience, operating models, intelligent mobility and cyber security.

Philip Hoare, president of Atkins, says the development of a system in which electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft can operate “has the potential to revolutionise future city and regional transportation”.

Vertical Aerospace has built a full scale eVTOL and is working towards a commercial flight by 2023.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Singapore to develop and trial autonomous buses
    April 10, 2017
    As part of efforts by the Committee on Autonomous Road Transport for Singapore (CARTS) to develop and deploy autonomous vehicles (AVs) to enhance Singapore’s land transport system, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has signed a partnership agreement with ST Kinetics to develop and trial autonomous buses. ST Kinetics will develop and integrate the AV technologies on to two 40-seater electric buses that can be deployed to serve fixed and scheduled services for intra- and inter-town travel in the future.
  • Data collection becoming a crowded market
    October 26, 2017
    New ways of gathering data can revolutionise traffic and travel management, so is the writing on the wall for the traditional methods? Jon Masters reports. There are two big industries that stand to be revolutionised by massive increases in data – healthcare and transportation, says Finlay Clarke, the UK managing director of the smartphone sat nav traffic app, Waze. “At present we’re really only at the start of how cities, in particular, will be transformed,” he says.
  • Michigan forms air mobility corridor 
    January 11, 2022
    Partners will explore whether drones can be used in delivery and medical transport 
  • Driven demos AVs operating ‘safely’ in London
    October 7, 2019
    The Driven Consortium has completed a week-long demonstration which it says shows that autonomous vehicles (AVs) can operate safely in London - with a safety driver. Driven - a £13.6 million initiative supported by the UK government - carried out the demo around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford in the east of the city. Driven has focused on completing fully-autonomous routes within the UK capital and the city of Oxford using Oxbotica’s autonomous software. Consortium members Moninet and Axa XL p