SCC-IRG Track 1: Community-Driven Design of Fair, Urban Air Mobility Transportation Management Systems

城市空中交通（UAM）设想将空中景观整合到交通网络中，包括送货无人机、用于城市内乘客旅行的垂直起降（VTOL）飞机按需共享交通等服务，以及从长远来看，电动和自动垂直起降飞机。这种可能的模式替代方案提供了一种安全、可靠、环保的选择，以减少地面拥堵。然而，交通基础设施发展的历史表明，必须与社区一起设计交通基础设施，以在这些社会技术要求之间找到最佳平衡。许多研究表明，交通系统的设计具有长期的、往往是歧视性的影响，加剧了现有的社会经济不平等。随着UAM作为一种新型交通方式的发展，我们正处在一个合适的时机，设计其基础设施，为所有人提供有效和公平的空中交通，避免我们过去的错误。该项目将侧重于了解UAM的所有利益相关者的偏好、态度和关注点，包括UAM的潜在用户、可能受到UAM积极和/或不利影响的不同社区的公众、政策制定者和城市规划者。从利益相关者那里获得的知识将指导开源计算机辅助规划工具的设计，政策制定者和城市规划者可以使用该工具来设计UAM基础设施，以适应社区的优先事项并实现交通公平。虽然UAM的时间表可能在未来，但其部署可能需要在未来对基础设施进行大量投资，这使得纳入公平考虑和早期社区参与至关重要。我们提出了一个“公平和公平的城市空中交通（UAM）基础设施设计的社区环内综合框架”。我们的综合框架将开发与关键利益相关者合作的方法，以应对重大的社会技术挑战，包括(a)在公平流动性的必要考虑方面了解社区偏好和需求，(b)开发新的机器学习技术，以生成有效优化社区需求的设计选项，以及(c)设计社区驱动的评估措施和权衡决策机制。我们通过从城市和交通工程、航空航天、计算机和信息科学中汲取知识来应对这些挑战。我们框架的最终产品是一个名为VertiCAP的开源计算机辅助规划工具。VertiCAP将配备新颖的基于机器学习的算法，以导航复杂的设计空间选项，包括长期决策（即UAM机场的分配，也称为垂直机场），中期决策（即空域设计）和短期决策（即空中交通管制）。我们将成立一个代表不同持份者的“社区委员会”。通过与社区委员会的持续互动，我们将评估和展示开发的VertiCAP工具在德克萨斯州奥斯汀市和南加州的有效性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) envisions integrating the skyscape into the transportation network and encompasses services such as delivery drones, on-demand shared mobility by Vertical-Take Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft for intra-city passenger trips, and, in the longer run, electric and autonomous VTOLs. This possible modal alternative provides a safe, reliable, and environmentally sound option to reduce surface-level congestion. Nevertheless, the history of transportation infrastructure development shows that it is imperative to design transportation infrastructures with the community to find the best balance between these sociotechnical requirements. Much research shows that the design of transportation systems has a long-lasting, often discriminatory effect that reinforces existing socio-economic inequality. As UAM is being developed as a new transportation mode, we are at an opportune moment to design its infrastructure to provide effective and equitable air mobility for all, avoiding our past mistakes. This project will focus on understanding the preferences, attitudes, and concerns of all stakeholders of UAM, including the potential users of UAM, the general public in different communities who may be positively and/or adversely affected by UAM, policymakers, and city planners. The knowledge elicited from the stakeholders will guide the design of an open-source Computer Aided Planning tool that policy-makers and urban planners can use to design UAM infrastructure that accommodates communities’ priorities and enables transportation equity. While the timeline for UAM may be in the future, its deployment may entail significant future investment in infrastructure which makes inclusion of equity considerations and early community engagement critical.We propose a ''Community-in-the-Loop Integrative Framework for Fair and Equitable Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Infrastructure Design''. Our integrative framework will develop methods to engage with key stakeholders to address significant socio-technical challenges, including (a) understanding the community preferences and desiderata in terms of necessary considerations for equitable mobility, (b) developing novel machine learning techniques to generate design options that optimize for community desiderata efficiently and (c) devising community-driven evaluative measures and trade-off decision mechanisms. We address these challenges by drawing from urban and transportation engineering, aerospace, and computer and information sciences. The final product of our framework is an open-source Computer Aided Planning tool called VertiCAP. VertiCAP will be equipped with novel machine learning-based algorithms to navigate complex design space options, including long-term decisions (i.e., allocation of UAM airports, also known as vertiports), medium-term decisions (i.e., design of air space), and short-term decisions (i.e., air-traffic control). We will establish a ''community council'' representing different stakeholders. Through continuous interactions with the community council, we will evaluate and demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed VertiCAP tool in the City of Austin, TX and Southern California.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.