As mobility options continue to expand around the world, we are beginning to see the rise of autonomous mobility in cities like Singapore, Phoenix and Las Vegas. With this will come increased mobility access and travel convenience for urban populations. Our models project a more than 1-trillion-mi. increase in vehicle miles in the U.S. alone over the next 20 years. All of this is occurring in a world where congestion permeates many of our largest cities. Average commute time in many metropolises is already 60 min., and the average rush-hour travel speed in the core of cities like London is under 3 mph.  
Given this reality, it is easy to see why there is such excitement over urban air mobility (UAM). “Uber Elevate” and similar whitepapers have catalyzed a great quantity of research, and dozens of aerospace and defense companies——including Airbus, Boeing, Bell and Volocopter—have publicly shown advanced electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) prototypes targeting the UAM market. 
But what are the potential volumes, and what will it take to unlock them? Like most mobility markets, once the basic technology and regulatory environment matures, market size will ultimately be a function of relative speed, origin and destination (O&D), passenger density and affordability for target customer segments. Our analysis suggests that congestion-driven travel times in high O&D travel lanes could allow attractive UAM markets to develop in at least 50 large megacities and megaregions around the world and could account for 400 million or more annual passenger enplanements by 2050.
Volocopter eVTOL concept
This market will depend on reliably and safely delivering “speed at a not-too-premium price,” versus black cars or premium rail services. Initially, UAM transportation will likely target high-density business-travel routes in order to deliver the “speed” promise to a somewhat less price-sensitive customer set. As such, the core of UAM enplanement forecasts represents high-frequency airport shuttle services similar to New York Airways’ operations in the 1960s and ’70s.
In the most highly congested cities such as Rio de Janeiro/Sao Paulo (which already has a thriving passenger helicopter market), our analyses of daily smartphone movement patterns show potential opportunities for UAM “commuter” network routes with sufficient O&D traffic to likely deliver an “affordable speed” promise to high-income and business populations.  
Ultimately, we can envision the potential for significant upside beyond the 400-million-enplanement forecast if technologies develop that extend eVTOL ranges to compete in short-haul intercity markets—turning the 2-4-hr. door-to-door trip from a “Do I fly or drive?” toss-up to a clear eVTOL choice. 
Which brings us to back to how to achieve this. There are some obvious routes where UAM may offer huge speed advantages to large premium-passenger populations—Midtown Manhattan to LaGuardia or JFK airports, Canary Wharf to Heathrow or Gatwick, the list goes on. Analyzing smartphone movement to and from business and high-income residential centers identifies hundreds of potential additional O&D opportunities worldwide. The required regulatory structures will be figured out over time. The central challenge for A&D to open this new market will be affordability—that “at-not-too-premium-a-cost” aspect looks tough today with black-car services running $3-5 a mile, but it will be daunting in an autonomous-mobility world. By the 2030s, that ground-based competition is likely to fall in cost by as much as 60-70% as the driver exits the picture and the mobility vehicle platform is reoptimized from driver-experience to mission-specific passenger-service needs. 
Airbus eVTOL concept
The call to our industry is clear. There is a societal need to address congestion and wasted travel time in our largest cities, and that creates a compelling market for UAM. Dozens of players are beginning to demonstrate eVTOL technology that appears poised to offer viably safe and quiet means to perform the intracity UAM mission. 
As business teams, we need to develop a richer understanding of what affordability will truly mean in this market: What are the price-versus-door-to-door time elasticities? How much of that potential 400-million-enplanement market could be accessible at a given cost per seat-mile? And what will it take to activate local passenger markets in urban islands around the world? 
As engineering and development teams, we need to rise, as we always have, to the “speed at not-too-premium-a-cost” challenge and design platforms that will help A&D to win a fair share versus the autonomous ground mobility options of the 2030s and 2040s. 
It is a large market and ours to create.
Tom Mayor is KPMG LLP’s Industrial Manufacturing Strategy Leader. He has served aerospace, automotive and transportation clients for over 28 years in development and support of their strategic growth and transformative performance improvement agendas. 
Jono Anderson is a KPMG LLP Industrial Manufacturing Strategy Partner with over 20 years’ experience in autonomy, high-performance computing and computer vision whose practice focuses on growth and innovation strategy for aerospace, technology and automotive clients 
The views expressed are those of the authors alone and do not represent those of KPMG LLP or Aviation Week.