World's first flying taxi vertiport set to make landing in Marina Bay come October

Flying cars ain't here just yet (despite pop-cultural assurances made by The Jetsons and Blade Runner), but Singapore will soon get the next best thing: hovering, flying, electric taxis.

The world's first vertiport (a portmanteau of "vertical" and "airport") for electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOLs) is set to open on Oct 21, and will be located in Marina Bay.

But don't think that we're all flying to and fro Marina Bay and Queenstown for lunch just yet. The upcoming vertiport will be used for live flight trials for on-demand air taxi services before it actually launches for real — something that's only estimated to take flight from 2022 onwards.

UK-based urban air mobility infrastructure firm Skyports will be handling the vertiport's construction, and its managing director Duncan Walker has assured that the Singapore government is fully supportive of the project.

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According to a report by AIN Online, Walker mentioned at the Global Urban Air Summit in the UK that the support of Singapore's civil aviation authority, transport ministry, and economic development board has been crucial in hastening the establishment of the facility which will be dubbed VoloPort.

The flying taxis themselves are built by German eVTOL developers Volocopter, which will test-run its 2X prototype aircraft. As far back as 2011, the company successfully pulled off the first manned flight of the world's first purely electrical multicopter — which basically looks like a giant drone with a seat strapped in the middle of all the rotors.

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Volocopter's tech has come to the point where its aircraft can now fly autonomously, as showcased in Dubai in 2017. 

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Driverless mobility services, according to the Singapore government, is the future of transport in a city that's as dense and size-constrained as ours. 

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"There is going to be a significant shift in the public mindset from one of ownership of transport assets — which is the mindset today — to one of procurement of transport services as and when you need them," enthused then Permanent Secretary for Transport Pang Kin Keong in 2017. 

Initiatives involving autonomous electric vehicles have seen a significant push of late in Singapore, with the most recent one being an ongoing trial run for driverless shuttle buses in Sentosa. But the affordability of air taxi services remains in question, and whether or not it'll take off seriously here hinges on its ease of access, regardless of the tech's operational success.

ilyas@asiaone.com