During the phase of the preparation of the proposal, the consortium envisioned to achieve the following objectives: Raise awareness to the employees that are foreseen to be involved in the creation of services deploying movements in the urban environment. Disseminate knowledge on the topic of innovative aerial services and urban air mobility so that the stakeholders of the future ecosystem have the same basis and in this way facilitate the uptake of the respective services Upskill employees in the public sector with the provision of a course that aggregates knowledge about all the fields that an IAS/UAM expert should demonstrate Enable employees of the public sector and young professionals to evolve in this field Specifically, by attending the UAMschool4cities course, the participants achieve the following outcomes: get familiarized with UAM concepts and key technologies keep up with relevant UAM regulatory frameworks while determining the challenges for Local Authorities include UAM in their urban development agendas and start developing responsible and socially acceptable UAM services for the benefit of their citizens.
Innovative Aerial services (IAS) refer to any application of drone technology for industrial or commercial reasons in the urban and suburban environments. According to the European aviation safety agency, IAS correspond to the set of operations that can benefit cities and are enabled by new airborne technologies. The operations include both the transportation of passengers and/or cargo and aerial operations. Cities and regions have now a central role to plan responsible and viable IAS according to recent regulations (Regulation (EU) 2021/664). However, there is no training available for the preparation of cities in this new role and context. Local Authorities need to be equipped with knowledge and skills that will allow them to successfully and responsibly plan and deliver these services. Hence, we wanted to address the needs of (1) knowing the planning principles of IAS services merging knowledge from the urban and air planning areas, (2) familiarise the professionals with the terminology used in the field to be able to communicate with the stakeholders, (3) transmitting the current regulations available for IAS operations and (4) identifying the infrastructure requirements the professionals will need to cater for.