When it comes to urban mobility, air distribution often takes a back seat due to the technological and legal challenges it still poses. But this form of distribution and transport of goods and people may be closer than you think.

Reality has finally set in and despite the efforts made in recent years to regulate and make last-mile commerce more sustainable, the truth is that most of the urban centres of our cities are still overwhelmed for much of the day by private and delivery vehicles.

For some time now, there has been talk of drone transport to make cities more sustainable and decongested during the great e-commerce boom. However, so far this alternative has been hampered by legal and technological limitations. But this is all about to change. On the one hand, the great technological evolution that these unmanned aerial vehicles are experiencing in recent years and the appearance of the so-called eVtol drones (acronym for "electric vertical take-off and landing"). These are devices that are usually larger than the drones we are used to seeing, and can transport goods and even people. They are zero-emission electric vehicles that take off vertically, so they need less space.

Although technically it would be possible to start using them, there is still a great challenge ahead in terms of regulation, integration into airspace, telecommunications... For now, there is legislation for simpler drones — remote-controlled drones with a small radius of action — but the European Commission is drawing up a regulation for the new devices, which can fly in automatic mode with cargo, or with pilot and passengers.

In this sense, the SIAM Cluster has been created to give a definitive boost to the sector and which encompasses everything related to innovation and business development associated with flight operators, software developers, manufacturers of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and eVTOLs, the construction of vertiports as well as the participation of all those agents dedicated to safety in airspace and its regulation. All of them will have in the SIAM Cluster a connecting link that will allow them to give a definitive boost to the sector.