Change in community annoyance at a vertiport by applying different approach/departure paths

Abstract

The resent research on urban air mobility and its related air traffic noise is still focused on the understanding of air taxis' noise sources but already includes studies about potential future noise situations in the vicinity of vertiports. While the assessment of noise levels on the ground is still connected to unknowns by the lack of reliable noise source data and missing numbers of real air traffic movements, questions about the potential noise impact due to these novel air transport systems are already being asked, also under the aspect of a public acceptance. This study was performed to provide first answers. A realistic UAM use-case was investigated by noise simulations for a German community, delivering an insight how the annoyance in the small-town changes when applying different paths to connect the vertiport with its neighbor communities. The grade of annoyance and the way it can be influenced through flight path optimization is also compared to the change of the population's ratio, exposed to certain noise levels on the ground.