Uber unveils its vision for urban transport as a flying car to hit Melbourne city within 4 years. Uber announced Melbourne as one of its testing cities in 2023 along with Dallas and Los Angeles.
The Victorian and the Australian governments have supported Uber for its urban transport vision. Also, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) will be responsible for the approval at different stages. Though for those hoping for a curbside helicopter service will be disappointed. The service will be operated through Uber application but will have designated stations called ‘Skyports’, to take off and land.
Uber calls the concept as ‘Aerial Ride-sharing’. Yet, many of the specifics including the design or the crafts on how would it be piloted is yet to be finalised.
The future of Urban Transport?
Under the plan, vertical take-off and landing vehicles would be based in stations at Melbourne, which will offer the customers an alternative to travel across the city or to the airports.
Eric Allison, the global boss of Uber’s Elevate program says that the 19-kilometre drive from Melbourne Airport to CBD will take no more than 10 minutes using the flying car service.
Will this airport ease boost Tourism?
Airport is one of the main stations where the technology will attract. This will definitely boost the Australian tourism, says Chris De Gruyter, the vice-chancellor in ‘Centre for Urban Research’ at RMIT, Melbourne.
But, Uber will need a place to park somewhere, take-off and land their flying cars, which either will be a roof or a carpark of a mall or a designated zone at the airport, which we say can cause trouble and traffic or the commuters. As for the noise, Uber says the flying cars would be at-least 32 times quieter than the usual helicopters.
So, we ask you how excited are you for flying cars to come on board? And what do you think about the concept? Let us know on the comments below.
