The Region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine has signed the Manifesto of Intent for the Urban Air Mobility programme.
“Nouvelle-Aquitaine was the first region in France convinced of the potential of a drone sector and the intelligent mobility. Innovation in these sectors has become a key differentiator in attracting new business,” according to a press statement. “That’s why Nouvelle-Aquitaine project propose to study the implementation of innovative mobility solutions using the aerial dimension to improve the urban and inter-urban mobility. The objective is to build starting from on-going experiences such as autonomous delivery of products and then to imagine, for example, the tourist transport from a liner docked in Bordeaux quays towards tourist areas, or to allow the transport of goods or isolated people towards health or economic centres. The tourist angle of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine project is also one of the differentiation factor compared to other territories which have joint the UAM initiative.”
“For the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region and the future urban mobility, the results of these studies will help build the complete ecosystem needed to welcome these new urban air mobility projects by offering both the skills, the regulation and safety support, funding, until the area necessary to carry out these experiments,” said Alain Rousset, President of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region. The feasibility of implementing these solutions will be studied in close collaboration with institutional partners such as the French Civil Aviation Authorities (DGAC). Other signatory partners include the AETOS and TOPOS clusters, Aerospace Valley competitiveness cluster, Thales, Airbus and Bordeaux Technowest and two project leader of the regional Drone City call of interest (AirMarine and Betomorrow, 33).
Driven by European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC) and supported by the European Commission, this UAM initiative is led by Airbus, with as institutional partners the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Eurocontrol. This initiative brings together cities, companies, research actors and all stakeholders until the citizens themselves to build, from 2019, experimental areas, ie places where the conditions (infrastructure, regulations, security …) are gathered to test these new mobility solutions and their impact on urban mobility and citizens.
Attendees at the signing ceremony included: Mr Alain Rousset, President of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region, Mr Alain Juppé, Mayor of Bordeaux Métropole, Mr Gervais Gaudière Regional Director for Civil Aviation for the French Civil Aviation Authorities, Mr Philippe Merlo, Director of Pan-European Civil-Militaty ATM for Eurocontrol and Mr Vassilis Agouridas, Leader of the UAM Initiative of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP-SCC).
