Aachen in the west of Germany is stepping up plans to include eVTOL aircraft in its public transportation network as officials look to deal with road congestion and poor connections for local residents and visitors. The city is working with nearby communities in neighboring Belgium and the Netherlands to explore the potential for an urban air mobility (UAM) network that could include Maastricht (17 miles away), Liege (30 miles), Hasselt (44 miles), and Heerlen (12 miles).
In a webinar last week that was organized by air traffic management agency Eurocontrol, Mirijam Böhme, Aachen’s UAM project lead, explained how the work is partly being coordinated through the "smart city" initiatives of the Oecher Lab network, which is backed by the government of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia region. Earlier this month, Aachen joined other German cities in signing a memorandum of understanding for a partnership backed by the federal government’s Ministry for Transport and Digitization.
