The ever-increasing demand for mobility, particularly for aviation, that continued for the first two decades of new century and saw demand for flights increase by around 4% per annum until 2019, was brought to a shuddering halt by the coronavirus of 2020. In 2019 there were 4.5 billion air passengers worldwide, more than double the numbers for 2006. In Europe, EUROCONTROL's current forecast (October 2021) predicts the recovery to 2019 levels during the course of 2023 in a baseline scenario. The 4% annual increase in demand will continue from then, though in a much changed environment.
Aviation provides the connectivity necessary for European integration, and is vital for the economic growth of the European Union (EU). According to the EU, "aviation supports close to 5 million jobs and contributes €300 billion, or 2.1% to European GDP". Aviation's research and development produces one of the best returns on investment and provides impetus to many other industries. The EU's funding for aviation research is over €5bn and this must be optimised to properly address the needs of European citizens. Therefore, it is important to identify gaps and challenges to ensure the sustainable development of the European air transport system.
CAMERA is a Coordination and Support Actions (CSA), designed to investigate research initiatives from the past decade that focus on the European air transport system and its integration with other transport modes, focusing on customer experience. The whole door-to-door chain of a typical passenger's journey, including access and egress by other forms of transport, must be viewed holistically to ensure that this journey can be undertaken efficiently and comfortably, at optimised cost and in the shortest possible time. Unused time - generally buffers left to account for unpredictable events - must be minimised. This is especially important in today's age of artificial intelligence, increased connectivity and personalised services. CAMERA takes this entire journey as its focus, therefore, while keeping air transport at the heart of an integrated, environmentally friendly and efficient transport system.
CAMERA is assessing these past and ongoing projects to uncover how they have contributed to the "Flightpath 2050" goal of an "integrated seamless, energy efficient, diffused intermodal system taking travellers and their baggage from door-to-door, safely, affordably, quickly, smoothly, seamlessly, predictably and without interruption" by 2050.
CAMERA's analysis provides the basis for future decisions on where EU research funding should be targeted to address the mobility needs of European citizens, so that future generations can benefit from reliable, efficient, resilient, safe and sustainable transport systems. The results of this analysis are published each year in CAMERA's Annual Mobility Report.
