Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PRIAM (Planning Regional-Scale Multimodal Operations for Innovative Air Mobility Services)
Reporting period: 2024-09-01 to 2025-08-31
PRIAM’s vision is that, within the next decade, regional-scale IAM services will be part of the European MaaS ecosystem, helping address regional connectivity challenges. Strategic and tactical decisions on regional-scale IAM will be supported by digital twins, powered by mobility data spaces and AI tools. IAM services will create sustainable value for aviation, while improving passenger experience, boosting capacity, enhancing efficiency and minimising environmental impacts.
To fulfill this vision, the goal of PRIAM is to develop a data analytics and modelling toolset that supports a passenger-centric integration of IAM into multimodal regional transport networks across Europe. PRIAM takes a holistic approach to IAM, covering several aircraft types (e.g. VTOL, STOL), associated operational sites (e.g. vertiports, regional airports) and business models (e.g. scheduled, on-demand). The PRIAM Solution will help understand passenger needs for regional travel, anticipate IAM adoption and use patterns, plan resilient IAM infrastructure networks that are seamlessly connected with other transport modes and optimise IAM service performance taking advantage of multimodal data sharing and passenger information systems.
PRIAM has four specific objectives:
- Define an impact assessment framework for regional IAM services that evaluates how different IAM vehicular concepts and business models address regional connectivity challenges and passenger needs.
- Develop and validate a concept outline for PRIAM, consisting in a data analytics and modelling SESAR Solution for planning the integration of IAM infrastructure and services into regional multimodal transport networks.
- Evaluate the capabilities of PRIAM through a set of case studies in European regions that show how the PRIAM Solution can help IAM regional-scale services improve passenger experience, capacity, environmental sustainability, and operational and cost efficiency.
- Derive a set of recommendations for the implementation of regional IAM services, based on a cost-benefit analysis that anticipates the impacts of a large-scale deployment of IAM services across Europe.
PRIAM results will produce a series of project outcomes that can be mapped to the environment, capacity, passenger experience, cost-efficiency and operational efficiency outcomes expected by the topic.
PRIAM outcomes will generate scientific, societal and economic/technological wider project impacts that can be mapped to the impacts specified in the work programme, i.e. high-level outcomes and performance objectives established by the SRIA (SESAR JU, 2020a) for each Flagship, particularly for Flagship 6 (Multimodality and passenger experience), but also for Flagships 4 (U-space and UAM) and 7 (Aviation green deal).
Ultimately, the achievement of these impacts helps the realisation of the Digital European Sky (DES) vision, as the regional-scale IAM services facilitated by PRIAM will be part of the MaaS ecosystem that can “take intermodality to the next level, connecting many modes of transport, for people and goods, in seamless D2D services” (SESAR JU, 2020b, p.17).
To fulfill this vision, the goal of PRIAM is to develop a data analytics and modelling toolset that supports a passenger-centric integration of IAM into multimodal regional transport networks across Europe. PRIAM takes a holistic approach to IAM, covering several aircraft types (e.g. VTOL, STOL), associated operational sites (e.g. vertiports, regional airports) and business models (e.g. scheduled, on-demand). The PRIAM Solution will help understand passenger needs for regional travel, anticipate IAM adoption and use patterns, plan resilient IAM infrastructure networks that are seamlessly connected with other transport modes and optimise IAM service performance taking advantage of multimodal data sharing and passenger information systems.
PRIAM has four specific objectives:
- Define an impact assessment framework for regional IAM services that evaluates how different IAM vehicular concepts and business models address regional connectivity challenges and passenger needs.
- Develop and validate a concept outline for PRIAM, consisting in a data analytics and modelling SESAR Solution for planning the integration of IAM infrastructure and services into regional multimodal transport networks.
- Evaluate the capabilities of PRIAM through a set of case studies in European regions that show how the PRIAM Solution can help IAM regional-scale services improve passenger experience, capacity, environmental sustainability, and operational and cost efficiency.
- Derive a set of recommendations for the implementation of regional IAM services, based on a cost-benefit analysis that anticipates the impacts of a large-scale deployment of IAM services across Europe.
PRIAM results will produce a series of project outcomes that can be mapped to the environment, capacity, passenger experience, cost-efficiency and operational efficiency outcomes expected by the topic.
PRIAM outcomes will generate scientific, societal and economic/technological wider project impacts that can be mapped to the impacts specified in the work programme, i.e. high-level outcomes and performance objectives established by the SRIA (SESAR JU, 2020a) for each Flagship, particularly for Flagship 6 (Multimodality and passenger experience), but also for Flagships 4 (U-space and UAM) and 7 (Aviation green deal).
Ultimately, the achievement of these impacts helps the realisation of the Digital European Sky (DES) vision, as the regional-scale IAM services facilitated by PRIAM will be part of the MaaS ecosystem that can “take intermodality to the next level, connecting many modes of transport, for people and goods, in seamless D2D services” (SESAR JU, 2020b, p.17).
The main activities and achievements performed so far can be summarised as follows:
- Identification of key regional connectivity challenges, passenger needs, IAM vehicular concepts and business models through extensive desk research.
- Identification of key scenarios for regional-scale IAM operations including two temporal scopes (2035 and 2050).
- Consolidation of an impact assessment framework which identifies relevant KPIs for measuring the impact of IAM services into 6 KPAs (passenger experience, demand, capacity, environment, operational efficiency and cost efficiency).
- Specification of the case studies to be conducted in PRIAM: the Catalan Pyrenees, representing a case study for the application of IAM to mountainous regions, and the Tenerife–La Gomera connection, representing the application of IAM to inter-island trips.
- Collection of the data required to develop and apply the PRIAM Solution, including the design and distribution of a stated preference survey for assessing the level of adoption of IAM in the geographical scope of the case studies.
- Creation of a data repository to store all the data collected and generated by the project.
- Comprehensive definition of the methodology for the development of the 5 components of the PRIAM Solution.
- Start of the technical tasks required for the development of the 5 components of the PRIAM Solution, which are currently ongoing.
- Identification of key regional connectivity challenges, passenger needs, IAM vehicular concepts and business models through extensive desk research.
- Identification of key scenarios for regional-scale IAM operations including two temporal scopes (2035 and 2050).
- Consolidation of an impact assessment framework which identifies relevant KPIs for measuring the impact of IAM services into 6 KPAs (passenger experience, demand, capacity, environment, operational efficiency and cost efficiency).
- Specification of the case studies to be conducted in PRIAM: the Catalan Pyrenees, representing a case study for the application of IAM to mountainous regions, and the Tenerife–La Gomera connection, representing the application of IAM to inter-island trips.
- Collection of the data required to develop and apply the PRIAM Solution, including the design and distribution of a stated preference survey for assessing the level of adoption of IAM in the geographical scope of the case studies.
- Creation of a data repository to store all the data collected and generated by the project.
- Comprehensive definition of the methodology for the development of the 5 components of the PRIAM Solution.
- Start of the technical tasks required for the development of the 5 components of the PRIAM Solution, which are currently ongoing.
PRIAM will advance the state-of-the-art regarding three main areas: passenger behaviour and IAM adoption modelling, and planning and operation of regional-scale IAM services.
PRIAM will advance the state-of-the-art of the analysis of passenger expectations by:
- Proposing an AI-based acceptance and adoption model for regional IAM that relies in tailored surveys, designed to avoid biases and account for cultural and geographical factors
- Expanding the capabilities of travel behaviour analysis methods based on geolocation data for covering aspects that are relevant to regional travel, such as bus demand and variability of mode choice decisions
- Developing a discrete choice modelling framework for regional IAM that effectively exploits the travel demand information from geolocation data and captures trip induction effects
PRIAM will advance the state-of-the-art of the planning and operation of regional-scale IAM services by proposing network planning and service optimisation tools that:
- Are sensitive to IAM modal shifts and induced demand among different passenger groups, so that sustainability and equity aspects are properly considered
- Enable a multimodal implementation of regional-scale IAM by favouring a seamless coordination with other modes
- Facilitate the robustness and reliability of regional-scale IAM by incorporating climate- and weather-related factors.
PRIAM will advance the state-of-the-art of the analysis of passenger expectations by:
- Proposing an AI-based acceptance and adoption model for regional IAM that relies in tailored surveys, designed to avoid biases and account for cultural and geographical factors
- Expanding the capabilities of travel behaviour analysis methods based on geolocation data for covering aspects that are relevant to regional travel, such as bus demand and variability of mode choice decisions
- Developing a discrete choice modelling framework for regional IAM that effectively exploits the travel demand information from geolocation data and captures trip induction effects
PRIAM will advance the state-of-the-art of the planning and operation of regional-scale IAM services by proposing network planning and service optimisation tools that:
- Are sensitive to IAM modal shifts and induced demand among different passenger groups, so that sustainability and equity aspects are properly considered
- Enable a multimodal implementation of regional-scale IAM by favouring a seamless coordination with other modes
- Facilitate the robustness and reliability of regional-scale IAM by incorporating climate- and weather-related factors.