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).