MDS Working Group

• Monthly on Thursday at 9am PT, 12pm ET, 5/6pm CET

Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAscOmhpjIuHNakPx6CNbACpjUjw1Gsucr4

One tap mobile: +19294362866,,84170989462#,,,,*612987# US (New York) - though we encourage Zoom

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), Part 2

• Intro and announcements (5 min)
• Advanced Air Mobility
  • Orientation and Recap (15 min) - Michael Schnuerle, OMF
  • Questions and Discussion (40 mins) - Clint Harper, AAM Community Advocate

1. Review and share meeting notes, slides, and recording with relevant people in your orbits.
2. Review materials from LADOT, Urban Movement Labs:
   1. Principles of the Urban Sky
   2. LADOT's UAM Policy Framework Considerations
3. Bring the right people from your organization and network to this public meeting and have questions/discussion.

• Who do you need to bring in from your orgs to this conversation?
• What operational data do cities believe they need?
• What challenges and policies will cities need data to support?
• What digital policy do cities need to publish for operators?
• What do cities need to know and share with the public to allow this to ‘fly’ politically?
• What laws are in place now? City, city council, local, state, federal, etc?
• What challenges or opportunities are there for navigation to airports, and CMAP regional planning?

WGSC Meeting Organizers

• Host: Pierre Bouffort, Blue Systems
• Facilitator: Clint Harper, AAM Community Advocate
• Outreach: Andrew Glass Hastings, Michael Schnuerle, OMF
• Note taker: Gene Leynes, Chicago

1. Leave your AAM and MDS thoughts on this open discussion issue

• 56 Attendees
• OMF Slides
• Recording - Password @7MmluqW

• Welcome - Pierre Bouffort
• Orientation for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Discussions and recap of 2024-01-18 meeting (Michael Schnuerle)
  • Link to Part 1 agenda / notes / recording etc.
  • This is the second discussion.
  • Opportunity for cities and everyone to be proactive, AAM is coming even if it's not in all cities yet
  • Information gathering phase
  • Scope:
    • Commercially piloted passenger and (potentially) cargo aircraft
    • Not in scope: Small package drones
    • Vertiports
  • Cities can take 2-3 years to plan and consider all issues (equity, noise etc.)
  • Possible MDS use cases
    • https://github.com/openmobilityfoundation/governance/wiki/MDS-Use-Cases
    • Understand best locations for vertiports for transit connectivity.
    • Emergency response no fly zones
    • Safety Reporting
    • Policy enforcement
    • Fees and revenue sharing
    • Equity goals / Justice 40 areas
  • MDS (Mobility Data Standards) Overview
    • Modes: passenger services, car share, delivery robots, micromobility
    • Purpose: Enable 2 way communication between agencies and mobility services operating in the right of way
    • 2 way sharing empowers operations
  • MDS and AAM - Natural translation from MDS to AAM with minimal additional information such as adding height as a parameter.
  • Operating Environment (Eve Air Mobility) - Operating environment.
  • FAA UAM CONOPS V2.0 - Diagram highlighting see pdf from FAA, point is to supplement this framework.
  • ATM Solution examples: UAM flight coordination, airside support, space management, conformance management
  • Value to governments: transparency, safety and efficiency, equity, strategic planning, data exchange
  • Review of LA DOT UAM principles, and considerations that relate to principles
  • Review of Orlando's work
• Clint Harper, AAM Community Advocate
  • Typical Roles of government
    • Looking at layers helps illuminate where to regulate without preemption.
      • Federal - Setting standards for aircraft certification and vertiports, airspace regulation and control, eVTOL sound standards and metrics, funding, coordination, other federal policy.
      • State - Enforcing standards, inspections, state resource planning, integration with network, workforce development, and supporting education.
      • Local - Zoning protections, vertiport placement, community engagement, testing and trials, addressing noise and noise mitigation, grid assessment, and emergency response.
    • Need for holistic view
    • Main pillars of focus for FAA: airspace, aircraft, operations, infrastructure, community.
      • First three (airspace, aircraft, operations) are regulation driven.
      • Second two (infrastructure, community) are a shared focus with state and local government.
    • Typical concerns: noise, pollution, lack of shared benefit.
    • Opportunity to improve management of problems, and move the needle on equity.
    • Avoid the surprises that came with rideshare and scooters.
    • Some states (FL and IL) have progressive infrastructure license protocols for informed decision.
    • Many airspace facilities are not obvious.
  • Outsized role of local government
    • Slide includes possible ordinances (overall land use, metric requirements for eVTOL, sound metrics developed by CAA, scheduling, facility location, emergency protocol, coordination with state DOT and CAA)
      • Example: Miami Helistop Ordinance
    • Call for realistic perspective - AAM not a solution for congestion, but is an opportunity for robustness
    • Integration with private companies
  • Questions w/ Facilitation
    • Andrew Hastings - No dumb questions.
    • Michael Schnuerle - Github link, use for comments and discussion https://github.com/openmobilityfoundation/mobility-data-specification/issues/896
  • Question 1 - How do cities currently approve your heliports and vertical lift infrastructure today?
    • Cities have existing authority for conditional use permits
    • Safety and data sharing oversight and enforcement are part of these permits
    • Steve
    • What does the city need to manage
      • NASA Standard https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20230010184/downloads/AAM-Community-Integration-Considerations-Playbook.pdf
      • Matched NASA Standard to city data to find what data cities can provide to meet NASA standard during Chicago pro bono assessment.
      • Cities should have open dataset that link UAM data to NASA standard, beyond traffic management, which includes community rules (hours, types of devices, corridors)
      • New city streets are 500 feet over people's heads will be like regular streets and need to be under city control .
    • Darton Ito (SFMTA)
      • We should inventory existing assets for vertiport locations that can already accommodate that traffic.
    • Clint Harper
      • Existing facilities are a good starting point, and a natural starting point.
      • Need to consider how existing facilities will meet the needs for higher tempo use cases, and whether they adhere to the standards for higher tempo / frequency use cases.
    • Steve
      • This new class of aircraft is extremely energy intensive, and we need to evaluate the city capacity for charging and emergency planning.
      • Heliports are not necessarily able to be retrofitted
    • Yolanka Wulff CAMI Community Air Mobility Initiative
      • CAMI works at federal, state, local, and tribal AAM advocacy.
      • We helped NASA develop their playbook.
      • APA work is set to be published this year.
      • Metropolitan Planning Organizations - Good level for planning, but nodes need to be analyzed for functionality.
      • Jacques Coulon (Orlando) / Liza Josias (Eve) / Chay Mosqueda (Wasatch Front Regional Council) - All seconded need for MPOs (Metropolitan Planning Organizations) to evaluate transportation networks across boundaries, and to fill in capacity and expertise.
  • Question 2 - What challenges and policies will cities need data to support? Updates needed to vertiport conditional use permits. Data can support safety, equity, noise, trip fees, response times.
    • Jacques Coulon - Data is necessary for ongoing use case evaluation, normally evaluation only happens during the initial application
    • Thinking about property rights, and quantifying the range of noise
    • Evaluate regulation and enforcement - what is the level of traffic
    • What are the impacts of events like diversion.
  • Question 3 - What digital policy do cities need to publish for operators? Geofencing can be used to limit noise, provide emergency information, and communicate vertiport availability. Digital policies for safety, working towards equity, and transit connections.
    • Paul D Utah DOT - Last year started working on licensing and planning. Current heliports are only for medical. Not urgent at this point. Working on roles and responsibilities of local government in the context of FAA regulation. Working on education and communicating upcoming expectations. Current aviation system is working well.

Notes from the chat:

• Gabriela Juarez, City of LA, Dept of City Planning UAM Lead: My apologies for having to drop off but as one of the main architects and leads for the City of LA's referenced documents, I'm happy to make myself available for follow up after today, please email me: gabriela.juarez@lacity.org
• Richard Pyke DVAC (retired FAA ATC SME): Vertiport, Vertistop, Vertihubs will all have diverse options for each operator. Specific operating criteria will need to be developed based on desired operations. Both on the ground and in the air. A Vertiport as defined will be a different model than Vertihubs and Vertistops.