Although the prospect of a world where all cars can launch into the sky like Danny Zuko’s 1948 Ford Deluxe is likely pretty far off, significant progress has recently been made by Dubai’s Road and Transport Authority (RTA) in order to bring us yet another step closer to autonomous air travel.
Having announced the signing of an agreement with German company Volocopter, flying taxis could be a part of the not-so distant future in the Emirates. Specialising in the production of autonomous air vehicles, Volocopter intends to work hand-in-hand with the RTA in order to launch the first air-borne vehicle capable of carrying two passengers in the region.
The initiative is in line with Dubai’s objective to convert up to 25 per cent of all journeys into autonomous transport by 2030, and is subsequently also in line with many of our own objectives to get to work on a Wednesday over a similar sort of time-frame.
With an agreement to test the drones later on this year has already been made, the ambitious publicly-available service hopes to be up-and-running within the next 5 years. Capable of achieving a max speed of 100km/h with a maximum flight time of approximately 30 minutes, the introduction of these electric powered, carbon emission free multicopters could mean the end of all traffic jams forever.
