Toulouse Métropole has joined the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Initiative of the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC).
The initiative is led by Airbus, while institutional partners include Eurocontrol and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The EIP UAM initiative is founded on a city-centric approach with a diversified set of demonstration projects with engaged smart cities and regions. The target is to jointly develop, through horizontal cooperation of diverse mobility actors, concrete urban air mobility solutions (intra-city and intercity mobility) with real impact by addressing established mobility needs of the specific cities.
The Manifesto of Intent was formally signed on 19 September at the Toulouse Métropole Central Offices, by Mr François Chollet, Vice-President of Toulouse Métropole, representing Mr Jean-Luc Moudenc, President of Toulouse Métropole, in presence of representatives of the Occitanie Region Prefecture and Prefecture of the Haute-Garonne, Tisséo Collectivités, DGAC (DSAC and DSNA), ENAC, CHU Toulouse, CEREMA, Aéroport Toulouse Blagnac, and also Mr Munish Khurana from Eurocontrol and Dr Vassilis Agouridas, EIP-SCC, UAM Initiative Leader, Airbus.
The ambition shared by the Toulouse ecosystem mobilized on this project is therefore to jointly develop concrete solutions for urban air mobility (intra-urban and interurban) with a real impact in terms of territorial issues. “With one of the fastest demographic and economic growth in France and Europe (+15 000 new inhabitants each year), Toulouse Métropole faces many challenges. In terms of transport, the congestion and the pollution it generates force us to imagine more sustainable mobility solutions now. An opportunity for Toulouse, which has a very rich ecosystem in terms of mobility of the future, intelligent transport systems (ITS) and autonomous and connected vehicles.
Alongside the “Projet Mobilités 2030” led by Tisséo-Collectivi “to encourage the implementation of new mobility services for which the UAM is a high-stakes lever, and this in a global approach for responsible and sustainable urban development,” Jean-Luc MOUDENC, President of Toulouse Métropole. To this end, Toulouse Métropole has set the following priorities, by adopting a step-by-step approach, for the sustainable integration of air mobility in its territories:
Remote sensing: use of drones for environmental monitoring applications or urban services (traffic management, air quality, infrastructure monitoring …), to meet the needs of supervision for the territory
Emergency and rapid response services (health, medical, security),
Urban logistics: to experiment with the support of specific products & services for which the drone technology could complete the already existing value chain, in a logic of the first / last kilometre.
Among other partners who have signed and support the Manifesto of Intent are public authorities, industrials, startups, research laboratories and clusters. Partners with an interest to support the UAM project in Toulouse include, amongst others, the Prefecture of the Occitanie Region and Prefecture of the Haute-Garonne, Tisséo Collectivités, Direction Générale de l’Aviation Civile (DGAC/DSAC and DGAC/DSNA), Aéroport Toulouse Blagnac, Caisse des Dépôts et des Consignations, Centre d’Etudes et d’expertise sur les risques, l’environnement, la mobilité et l’aménagement (CEREMA), Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique Micro-drones, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse (CHU), Ecole Nationale de l’Aviation Civile (ENAC), Fédération de Recherche ONERA ENAC ISAE-SUPAERO, Airbus, Aerospace Valley, AirMap, Delair, EDEIS, ESSP, Electric Visionary Aircrafts (EVA), Institut Aéronautique et Spatial (IAS), Involi, IRT Saint-Exupéry, ISAE-Supaero, LAAS-CNRS, M3 Systems, ONERA, Oppidea, Safran, Sopra Steria, Telespazio France, Thales, Unifly, VIPAIR-e, … The list of interested partners is by no means neither definitive nor closed. Following the signature of the manifesto, an official Kick-Off Workshop will be organized in October 2018. The date and venue of the KickOff Workshop, as well as registration details, will be announced soon at www.toulouse-metropole.
