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Basic Report

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(RR-24-09) A Study on Developing an Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Safety Assessment System
  • Date

    July 01 2025

  • Authors

    Seungwon Noh, Jungwoo Cho, Mi-Jin Ahn, Deokbae An

  • Page(s)

    26 page(s)

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1 Introduction

With recent technological advancements in the aviation field, efforts are being made to develop, introduce, and commercialize new types of aircraft such as drones and urban air mobility (UAM). In particular, advanced countries such as the United States and those in Europe are not only establishing operational guidelines and conducting research related to UAM in order to lead the UAM industry, but are also providing policy support to build and activate the UAM industrial ecosystem.

The Korean government has also established the "Korean Urban Air Mobility (K-UAM) Roadmap" (June 2020), the "Korean Urban Air Mobility (K-UAM) Technology Development Roadmap" (March 2021), and the "Korean Urban Air Mobility (K-UAM) Concept of Operations 1.0" to support UAM commercialization. In addition, the "Act on the Promotion and Support for the Utilization of Urban Air Mobility" was enacted and came into effect in April 2024, with the goal of achieving initial commercialization by 2025. Along with this, the government is promoting the K-UAM demonstration project (Grand Challenge) in phases, and will continue the project by reviewing the need and methods for additional demonstrations, step by step, in consideration of the progress at each stage and international trends. With the participation of various private company consortia, the goal is to complete integrated UAM operation demonstrations by 2025.

This UAM operational system involves a complex environment because various stakeholders such as private vertiport operators and UAM traffic management service providers participate. Due to the nature of the operational environment (e.g., flying at low altitude over densely populated urban areas), ensuring safety is of the utmost importance. However, there have been insufficient discussions or research efforts regarding systems to evaluate and analyze the safety of the overall UAM operational system.

Therefore, this study set as its main objective the establishment of a foundation for a system that evaluates and analyzes the overall safety of the UAM operational system. Specifically, the components of the UAM operational system and their interrelationships were defined, and a UAM operational safety assessment model was proposed using a system safety assessment approach. In addition, safety assessment models were built for multiple accident scenarios that may occur during UAM operation, and safety weaknesses in the currently proposed UAM operational system were identified through analysis, and safety policies were derived, thereby laying the foundation for a safety-based decision support system.

 
 
[ Contents ]

1. Introduction

2. Analysis of UAM Operational System


2-A. Definition of UAM

2-B. Key Concepts and Stakeholders of UAM

2-C. UAM Operational Environment

2-D. Differences Between UAM and Conventional Air Transportation

3. Review of System Safety Assessment Methods and Examples

3-A. System Safety Assessment Models

3-B. Applications of safety assessment models in the transportation sector

3-C. Implications

4. Safety Assessment of UAM Operational System

4-A. UAM Accident Scenarios

4-B. Modeling of Safety Assessment for UAM Operations

4-C. Safety assessment of UAM operational system

5.Safety improvement measures and policy recommendations for UAM operations

4-A. Safety improvement measures for UAM operational system

4-B. Policy recommendations

6. Conclusion
KOR

KOREA TRANSPORT INSTITUTE