Future Flight in Place

Start date: 1 October 2023
End date: 31 October 2024
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
Value: £43,000
Partners and collaborators: Bournemouth University, University of Southampton
External primary investigator: Professor Janet Dickinson (Bournemouth University)
Co-investigators: Professor Greg Marsden
External co-investigators: Professor Tom Cherrett (University of Southampton)

Governments across the world are exploring how future flight technologies can support the movement of goods and people. Electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) air taxi flights are planned for the 2024 Paris Olympics and groceries are being delivered by drones in Australia.

In the UK, the Future Flight Vision and Roadmap envisages a role for drones and eVTOL in everyday transport systems. If, where, and how we might use such technologies is yet to be decided - making this a key point in time for discussion and debate.

However, involving a general audience in this debate is challenging, as future flight technologies are unfamiliar and of little relevance to our current lives.

We need to help people to understand the new technologies and their potential uses so that people can help guide the decisions that might benefit or impact where they live. Different places may see the opportunities and challenges of future flight technologies differently.

The Future Flight in Place research project uses interactive engagement tools developed using real-world data that locates the technologies in the places people live.

These include:

-   A virtual reality (VR) experience providing a realistic audio-visual representation of logistics drones and eVTOL flying across the place where participants live.
-   A digital game that explores where delivery drones might fly that uses real-world data on energy use, risk and location features.
-   A place-based board game that explores logistic drone missions and engages participants in discussion including where drones fly and what type of items they might carry.
-   A sorting activity that engages participants with governance and regulatory considerations.

Leeds is working to understand if the concerns of citizens match those of professional stakeholders and the extent to which these concerns vary across different place contexts.

Project website

https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/projects/future-flight-place