Integrating Advanced Air Mobility: A Primer for Cities

December 2022

Integrating Advanced Air Mobility – A Primer for Cities serves as a guide for cities to begin planning for the integration of advanced air mobility technologies, inspired by the work accomplished to-date by the City of Los Angeles in collaboration with Urban Movement Labs.

This primer provides city and other government stakeholders an overview of emerging advanced air mobility technologies, steps to consider during exploratory & initial planning phases, and considerations for the near future.

Electric & Shared Mobility Virtual Workshop Report

October 2022

Simply substituting internal combustion engines with electric cars will not solve our urban mobility challenges; cities can’t end car dependency without building shared-multimodal systems. The e-revolution also includes alternatives such as e-bikes, e-transit, and escooters, which can help us build shared-electric-multimodal cities. This event focused on how all types of electric transportation can help us build a multimodal city to reduce miles of single-occupancy trips by car, whether electric or not.

UML Annual Report 2021

February 2022

Urban Movement Lab’s first annual report showcases the work in our first full calendar year as a staff and 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, building on a year of incubation within the Mayor’s office spearheaded by our Founding Board. Over the course of 12 months our organization has grown, and our roster of public and private sector partners has expanded beyond our initial founders to include firms developing technologies at the forefront of urban mobility.

Digitizing the Curb: Curb Inventory Pilot Project

December 2021

Curbside data is critical to facilitate curb management tools like dynamic curb regulations and pricing, which allow for greater mobility and access for people and businesses on our streets. Urban Movement Labs partnered with CurbIQ in the Summer of 2021 to demonstrate the potential of augmented mobile mapping as a quick and scalable curb inventory method in North American cities. Using three Los Angeles neighborhoods and a subset in the neighboring city of Maywood as study areas to test their methodology, CurbIQ gained valuable lessons to refine their collection processes for inventorying curb regulations. Learn more about the lessons learned through this pilot project to to inform a scalable and economic solution for digitizing curb space in cities across North America.

Urban Movement Labs Strategic Plan 2021 – 2023

November 2021

This is the inaugural three-year strategic plan for Urban Movement Labs (UML). Our organization links government, businesses, and community members to modern technology solutions to help solve transportation challenges in Los Angeles. With the support of the City of Los Angeles and the Mayor’s Office, Urban Movement Labs aims to make Los Angeles the model city for safe, sustainable, equitable, and accessible movement of people and goods and replicate these learnings around the world. Learn about our vision, mission, values, and actions to reach our goals.

What is Urban Air Mobility?

Recently, Urban Air Mobility (UAM) technology has been compared with flying cars that would fulfill visions of The Jetsons cartoon. While this imagery is fun, it’s important that we remain anchored on the fact that this technology is the future of aviation, regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with safety as the top priority. While UAM offers opportunities to complement and enhance other modes of transportation, we must be clear that this is not “flying cars,” nor is it a new form of the private automobile.

What is the Regulatory Role of a City when it Comes to Urban Air Mobility (UAM)?

Since early 2021, Urban Movement Labs (UML) has been leading the work of the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Partnership, a product of a public-private partnership between the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), and private sector partners.  This model of public-private-community partnership is foundational to UML’s mission and serves as an example for cities around the world on how to co-design new parts of cities’ transportation networks. The UAM Partnership has focused on educating and engaging Los Angeles residents and city departments around a new and dynamic transportation technology – electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles. The work conducted under the UAM Partnership sets a precedent for how diverse stakeholders can collaborate on a safe, community-centered approach to integrating aerial mobility technology into existing and new multimodal platforms.