On-Demand Aviation Services for Mobility, Logistics, Emergency Response, and Humanitarian Use Cases (2024)
Chapter: Safety and Public Perception
Safety and Public Perception
Panelists
Daniel Friedenzohn, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Moderator
Christopher Hart, Hart Solutions LLC
Laura Chace, Intelligent Transportation Society of America
Daniel Friedenzohn commenced with a discussion of various AAM market forecasts and the opportunities and challenges to scaling AAM. Laura Chace emphasized the lengthy process that often accompanies innovation in the public sector, particularly for a new mode of transportation that will require extensive physical, energy, and digital infrastructure. Chace underscored the importance of establishing a clear regulatory structure and roadmap to guide the AAM ecosystem.
Both Chace and Christopher Hart, former Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board and a safety expert, delved into the many challenges facing the growth and mainstream adoption of AAM, such as safety and public perception. They drew parallels to the anticipation and excitement in the transportation industry surrounding automated vehicles and to industry hype predicting that streets would be filled with driverless cars by 2020.
Hart outlined the formidable challenges to achieving safe and scalable automation in both air and ground transportation modes. Both Chace and Hart highlighted the significance of cross-learning between surface and air transportation modes. They explained that the AAM ecosystem must draw lessons from the challenges related to public perception, which have significantly impacted the public trust and adoption of automated vehicles, while the field of surface transportation should learn from the decades of technical and safety experience in automating various pilot functions in the flight deck.
Hart also underlined the existential importance of safety in AAM, especially in the likely operational environment at low altitudes over urban areas. Chace concurred, adding that safety concerns with AAM and vehicle automation represent a risk to further regulatory oversight and public trust and confidence. Chace emphasized the importance of collaboration between government and industry to safely demonstrate various AAM deployments and use cases.
As the chat concluded, Friedenzohn, Chace, and Hart discussed research needed to facilitate the transition from piloted to uncrewed AAM operations. Chace emphasized the importance of societal, behavioral, and public perception research, particularly to understand concerns from nonuser perspectives, such as those impacted by automated
overflights. Chace also discussed the lack of diversity in the aviation industry and the hope for increased efforts to make AAM appealing to a broader spectrum of sociodemographic groups. Hart emphasized the importance of human factors research. Drawing on his experience in commercial aviation, Hart stated that human factors challenges will become more apparent as greater levels of automation are employed in AAM aircraft and in air traffic management. Hart emphasized that human factors research is needed to understand the complexities of remotely piloted operations, especially when a single remote pilot has control over more than one aircraft.
