With a vision to improve communities and reshape our cities, Gannett Fleming responded to the Uber Elevate Skyport Challenge with an inspiring and powerful concept. Providing the essential connection between the urban mobility of today and tomorrow, our SKYPORT design concept makes Uber’s revolutionary idea of on-demand urban air transportation possible.
The SKYPORT is an entirely new urban intermodal hub offering a comfortable, easy-to-navigate space for passengers to access vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft for their daily commutes. It can be built atop or between existing buildings to create convenient air transit routes across cities large and small.
The Gannett Fleming design concept--one of six finalists in the challenge--maximizes passenger comfort and safety while minimizing environmental impacts. Modular and highly flexible, our SKYPORT efficiently links all forms of urban transportation, making cities simpler, quieter, and smarter. The facility was artfully designed to activate a forward-thinking concept that will improve mobility and decrease traffic congestion, enhancing the quality of life in urban environments around the world.
“Innovation, quality, and safety are embedded in Gannett Fleming’s DNA, and we are passionate about solving the complex infrastructure challenges that face our communities,” said Bob Scaer, PE, Gannett Fleming chairman and CEO. “There are significant forces of change that are fundamentally altering the way we live, work, and relate to one another. Employees from across our company’s many disciplines embraced the opportunity to participate in Uber's Skyport Challenge because we are committed to improving the quality of life for the communities we serve.”
Our approach to the SKYPORT design centers around our PAW--an optimized configuration for landings, takeoffs, drone charging, and passenger comfort. The modularity of the design offers flexibility by allowing a PAW to be replicated as many times as needed for the size of the space and anticipated demand.
Adaptable to a range of environments and locations, the design features a wire-guided robot that safely rotates a VTOL in place, positioning it as required and enabling efficient movement to and from the final approach and takeoff area. A single PAW can support 52 VTOLs per hour.
To design the SKYPORT, our multidisciplinary team looked at how Uber’s ground-based programs changed our ideas of on-demand mobility. We leveraged our diversified experience solving increasingly more complex and unique problems in the built environment. We looked to nature for inspiration.
Through the power of our in-house subject matter experts, we developed a concept that improves our communities by integrating environmentally friendly features, such as renewable energy, sustainable materials, and daylighting, while providing an experience that is intuitive, inviting, and safe.
