The European Union leads the global community of UAS traffic management (UTM) regulators, operators and developers in legislation with its U-Space Regulations (U-Space Regulations 2021/664-666). This is one of the key conclusions of the UTM Ecosystems’ Readiness Index Report 2024, published today by the Global UTM Association (GUTMA).
The report provides is an in-depth global analysis of UTM ecosystem readiness levels at the national scale, highlighting best practices to enable commercial and scalable BVLOS drone services and areas that need improvement.
“Charting the potential of digital aviation, the GUTMA Ecosystems’ Readiness Index Report reveals where the drone ecosystem is headed, how it’s evolving, and how we can measure progress on a global scale,” said Koen De Vos, Secretary-General of GUTMA.
“The report emerges in a context where a structured framework for data collection and analysis has been missing,” said GUTMA in a press release. “To address this issue, the dedicated GUTMA Task Force, in collaboration with PwC, developed a global benchmarking methodology consisting of six dimensions: legislation, governance, strategy, operations, technology, business and market
“For each dimension, the report identifies Maturity Parameters (Readiness Index) to score the ecosystems of each analyzed country, mapping the best practices for scaling commercial BVLOS drone services as well as highlighting the dimensions that require improvement. The countries are grouped by region: Africa, Asia, Australia and Oceania, Europe, Middle East, North and South America.
The report identifies global and regional leaders and specific actions to take to advance UTM ecosystems globally. Apart from the EU’s lead in regulation, “Japan exemplifies effective governance through its culture of cooperation among stakeholders, Switzerland further showcases effective governance through its SUSI (Swiss U-Space Implementation) initiative, Belgium stands out in the strategy dimension with its comprehensive approach to integrating drone operations, the United States sets a benchmark in operations with its deployment of commercial BVLOS drone services, (and) Australia serves as an example in the business and market development dimension.
The countries are divided into five tiers, where 1 means that the country is quite mature in all dimensions, while 5 means nascent state of commercial and scalable BVLOS drone services and UTM implementation.
“However, the report also pinpoints critical areas where improvement is needed. Significantly, suggestions include the introduction of BVLOS-oriented regulations, defining harmonized frameworks with clear roles, responsibilities and standards, greater private-sector engagement by public authorities and new or updated strategies at national and organizational levels, which take into account the latest UTM Technologies and market trends. Others include Advanced UTM systems with dynamic airspace management and business tools like market-sizing methodologies and value chain analyses.
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GUTMA Task Force releases long-anticipated UTM Ecosystems’ Readiness Index 2024 Report
