Drone Infrastructures Planning on Large-scale for Passenger Transport

This paper presents a case study on vertiport positioning for taxi drones in Valencia, Spain. The proposed methodology applied as a “preliminary phase” preceding the three established phases of flight planning – Strategic, Pre-Tactical, and Tactical – adopted in European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) regulations. This phase identifies suitable areas for unmanned aerial system (UAS) operations through a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) considering critical aspects like social acceptability, safety, and accessibility. This involves evaluating factors such as Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) services which also include positioning, together with noise regulations, and ground risk. The result of overlaying various factors, transformed into a suitability layer, is a map that guides decision-makers and industry in locating infrastructures like vertiports and corridors.