Passenger drones to take to the skies in Dubai

Passenger drones could be seen in the skies above Dubai as early as July 2017, according to the city’s Road and Transport Authority (RTA). Speaking at the World Government Summit, Mattar Al Tayer, chairman of RTA, said the pilotless drones, designed to carry a weight of 100kg and a small suitcase, will have a range of 50 km and are on track to take off beginning in July 2017. The drones are part of Dubai’s strategy on autonomous transportation, under which 25 per cent of all journeys within the Emirat
February 15, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
Passenger drones could be seen in the skies above Dubai as early as July 2017, according to the city’s Road and Transport Authority (RTA).

Speaking at the World Government Summit, Mattar Al Tayer, chairman of RTA, said the pilotless drones, designed to carry a weight of 100kg and a small suitcase, will have a range of 50 km and are on track to take off beginning in July 2017.

The drones are part of Dubai’s strategy on autonomous transportation, under which 25 per cent of all journeys within the Emirate are expected to be smart and driverless by 2030.

According to Associated Press, the Chinese-made EHang 184 has a top speed of 160 kph (100 mph), but authorities say it will be operated typically at 100 kph (62 mph). It carries only one passenger, who selects a destination on a touch-screen pad in front of the seat and the drone flies there automatically.

“This is not only a model,” al-Tayer said. “We have actually experimented with this vehicle flying in Dubai's skies.”

Related Content

  • May 30, 2013
    Apps help passengers avoided overcrowded public transport
    David Crawford reviews innovations in the comfort zone. Anyone who rides public transport knows that, perhaps second only to delays, overcrowding is a critical part of the passenger experience,” says Nir Erez, CEO of Moovit, the Israel-based social transportation app developer. The app is aimed at taking real-time user feedback on transit and making it available to a wider audience of travellers. Currently available on iPhone and Android, it plans to add Windows 8 and other platforms in the future. Moovit i
    Read More
  • January 23, 2012
    Changing driving conditions need ongoing driver training
    Trevor Ellis, chairman of the ITS UK Enforcement Interest Group, considers the role of ongoing driver training in increasing compliance. It is over 30 years since I passed my driving test. The world was quite a different place then, in that there were only half the vehicles there are now on the UK's roads, mobile phones did not really exist and (in the UK at least) the vast majority of us drove cars which by today's standards exhibited dreadful dynamic stability and were woefully underpowered.
    Read More
  • March 27, 2018
    Dundee trial offers insight into delivering MaaS in smaller urban and rural areas
    A MaaS trial in Scotland will evaluate the attraction of such services for young people living in small cities and rural areas. Colin Sowman reports. It is often said that Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is fine in big cities - but what about smaller towns and rural areas? Well, the city of Dundee in Scotland has only around 150,000 people but is set to provide some answers with its trial of NaviGoGo, a MaaS operation aimed at 16-25 year olds – be they students, working or unemployed. By population, Dundee
    Read More
  • October 17, 2019
    Getting C/AVs from pipedream to reality
    The UK government has suggested that driverless cars could be on the roads by 2021. But designers and engineers are grappling with a number of difficult issues, muses Chris Hayhurst of MathWorks Earlier this year, the UK government made the bold statement that by 2021, driverless cars will be on the UK’s roads. But is this an achievable reality? Driverless technology already has its use cases on our roads, with levels of autonomy ranked on a scale. At one end of the spectrum, level 1 is defined by th
    Read More

Highlighted Content