Uber Unveils Skyport Concepts for it’s Flying Taxi

Skyports designed for vehicles of the Uber Air project, the world’s first urban aviation network.

Architectural and engineering partners of Uber demonstrated how skyports can look like – stations designed for vehicles of the Uber Air project, the world’s first urban aviation network.

During the Uber Elevate summit, eight firms presented 16 new designs for skyports. Where exactly are they supposed to be placed? To do this, Uber assumes cooperation with developers and cities, planning to install skyports on the roofs of parking lots and other facilities with a low utilization rate.

So far, Uber Air is in the pilot project stage, in which three cities will take part – Dallas, Los Angeles, and Melbourne. It is expected that test flights will begin in 2020, and commercial flights in 2023. Well, since the project promises to be successful, it is necessary to start the development of appropriate infrastructure now. And here, architects from different companies are working to present something that has never existed.

This project is a real find for designers and engineers who got the opportunity to realize something unusual, something that no one has yet worked on. All the submitted projects are united by the fact that their creators sought to take into account the needs of people shortly. And skyports are equipped not only with shops and restaurants, but also sports halls and parking areas for bicycles and various electric vehicles, from scooters to cars. Some designs are well visible solar panels.

The architects also tried to take into account the possibility of integrating skyports into the already existing infrastructure. And this is important because the newest buildings will have to be “squeezed” among the already constructed buildings or become part of future projects. Thus, the concept of the American design company Corgan implies the construction of a skyport above one of the Dallas highways. But the project Mithun from Los Angeles is a skyport above a small city park – a sort of connection between the world of nature and technology.

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As for the size, it presents both relatively small projects and really impressive buildings. From a few hundred meters, to be placed on the roofs of existing parking lots, to several thousand, conceived as independent buildings – something like a small shopping center, on the roof of which Uber Air vehicles can arrive.

It is still difficult to judge the future of the project. But, given the speed of development of modern technologies, it can be assumed that its growth will be rapid.