How soon will it be before you can ride hail a drone?  Uber Elevate is investing heavily in urban air mobility (UAM).  This week, Uber Elevate announced a collaboration iwth venture -backed Hidden Level, a company specializing in low altitude airspace monitoring, to advance UAM operations.

“Uber Elevate is Uber’s initiative to promote safe, reliable, clean, and affordable air mobility services through networks of electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOL). Through this partnership, Hidden Level and Uber Elevate have agreed to share expertise in designing and deploying scalable airspace operations based on data generated from Hidden Level’s custom-built sensors, which are strategically installed in dense urban environments,” says a Hidden Level press release.

“Hidden Level is committed to bringing our cutting edge sensor technology service to safely increase the density of low altitude airspace operations, including looking at the future with Urban Air Mobility,” said Jeff Cole, CEO, Hidden Level. “This partnership with Uber Elevate is a reflection of our shared vision to enable innovative technology solutions with safety as a priority, a tenet we describe as Safety Through Sensing^TM”.

“The Uber platform was built with safety in mind, and the Uber Elevate team is committed to building upon the aviation industry’s robust safety standards as we bring this new form of on-demand air mobility to our riders,” said Tom Prevot, Director of Airspace Systems. “Our partnership with Hidden Level seeks to enhance our ability to demonstrate the ways in which Uber Air will meet industry safety standards, and we look forward to collaboration in the years ahead.”

Uber Elevate is about more than ride hailing a drone.  Uber has also invested in drone delivery for it’s food delivery service, Uber Eats.   The evolution of the Uber Elevate platform is moving urban air mobility forward, as cities around the world look to the skies to ease urban congestion.  With road infrastructure as large as it can get in many cities, there is nowhere to go but up.

Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional drone services marketplace, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space and is an international speaker and recognized figure in the industry.  Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies.
For drone industry consulting or writing, Email Miriam.

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