Market Potential for Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) Concept: a Malaysian Case Study
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International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Volume 119 No. 15 2018, 3755-3760 ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version) url: http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/ Special Issue http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/ Market Potential for Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) Concept: A Malaysian Case Study Fairuz I. Romli*, Hassan Rashid and Mohammad Yazdi Harmin Department of Aerospace Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia *[email protected] Abstract—Traffic congestion has become a common problem in The direct point-to-point travel, also known a direct door-to- many countries in the world today, including Malaysia. Several door travel, refers to travelling from point of departure until different efforts have been made such as upgrading the ground arriving at the final destination point using a single mode of transportation infrastructures and public transport facilities, but the transportation. This means that there is no need to change the problem still largely remains. The idea of a dual-mode Personal Air transport mode throughout the trip. For instance, a domestic Vehicle (PAV) concept has already been around for decades and travel between cities within the Peninsular Malaysia using a with the increase in ground traffic problems, it is envisioned to be personal car can be categorized as direct point-to-point since the possible solution. A dual-mode PAV has the capabilities of both the traveler can depart from any chosen departure point and ground and air transport vehicles. It has been published in several arrive at the final destination with the same car in the ideal studies that such PAV has some advantages in terms of performance circumstances. Currently, in most parts of the world, cars and against the existing modes of transport. However, as expected with motorcycles are the only personal transportation modes that new invention, despite its clear advantages, public perception of PAV are capable of direct point-to-point travel. However, this also is vital for its successful implementation. This study aims to explore whether PAV concept has adequate market potential to be applied heavily depends on transportation facilities that are available for domestic travel in Malaysia. Public perception is determined between the designated travel points. Similar to many other from the collected data through conducted public survey done at two developing countries, Malaysia is facing big challenges with major transportation hubs in Kuala Lumpur city area. All in all, it the rise in the transportation demands. By year 2020, it has can be concluded from the survey results that the PAV concept has a been projected about 48 million vehicles will be operated on good market potential and several design considerations are the roads within the country [3]. Subsequently, the problems established for its future implementation in Malaysia. of road traffic congestion will become more severe and this situation has led to the negative effects such as wasted travel time and cost, increased fuel consumption, increased air and noise pollutions, and also elevated accident and fatality rates Keywords-personal air vehicle; flying car; traffic [4]. congestion; PAV; market survey While several efforts have already been made to ease the situation, particularly by improving existing ground transport I. INTRODUCTION infrastructures, the traffic congestion problem still continues. Transportation has always been a primary factor for good In fact, such infrastructure investment has been proven to be societal development. Nowadays, the ability to travel from a hard to sustain with ongoing reduction of economic growth as place to another has become a necessity for many people and the result from the loss of time and also opportunities due to it creates socioeconomic opportunities for the communities. congested transportation system. Moreover, because of the An effective transportation is also crucial for businesses and significantly high level of private car ownerships and usage, networking, particularly those involving door-to-door and/or the improvements made on the public transportation system face-to-face service. As time progresses, the current personal in Malaysia appears to have negligible effects in alleviating transportation system needs to be improved in order to better ongoing road traffic congestion problems. As stated in Kuala adapt with the changing travel demands and needs. A study Lumpur Structure Plan 2020, only about 20% of total people by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) movements within Kuala Lumpur city have been catered by has forecasted that the future trend of personal travels will be public transports while the rest 80% were made using private more inclined towards more of direct doorstep-to-destination transports [5]. It is reasonably difficult to switch travel mode trips that can be more flexibly executed at any time, in any pattern of people who prefer to use own private transport into weather and also in as little time as possible [1]. This notion using the public transport services, especially when the latter is also in agreement with the results of previous study on the service has been known to be quite inefficient and unreliable. domestic transportation options in Malaysia, where the direct A survey conducted among the Malaysian public highlighted point-to-point travel capability has demonstrated big benefits several factors that have discouraged people from using the especially in terms of the travel time and cost [2]. In effect, available public transports. Among others, the given reasons these will become the main characteristics of future transport include high safety risk due to road accidents, longer travel system that need to be considered for improving the existing time and insignificant cost savings [6]. The preference of the ones and/or for developing new ones. Malaysian public towards private transportation is reflected In Malaysia, several different means of transportation are by the high increment in the number of cars and motorcycles available for the public to choose for their domestic travels. on the road annually. In 2010, cars have recorded the highest 3755 International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Special Issue 3756 International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Special Issue 3757 International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Special Issue 3758 International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Special Issue concentrated in the Kuala Lumpur city areas, it can be seen that people are interested in finding new ways to solve the big ground traffic congestion problems and this finding can be extended to the other cities and places within Malaysia as well. Meanwhile, several major considerations must be taken into account to ensure the successful implementation of PAV operation that include price of PAV ownership, ease of PAV handling and passenger capacity size of the PAV. All these have to be taken into account during design and development process of the PAV system, on top of having competitive features against the existing private transport vehicles such as cars and motorcycles. Overall, it can be concluded that a market potential exists for the application of PAV concept in Malaysia but further research study has to be done to ensure that its operation and implementation effectively provide the utmost benefits to the public, especially in solving the traffic congestion problems. This includes a suitable design of the PAV that enables it to be operated within the existing local transportation network. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Ministry of Education, Malaysia through the research grant under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) – FRGS/1/2012/TK09/UPM/02/1. Moreover, we like to thank the management of both KL Sentral and TBS for allowing us to conduct our survey at their facilities. REFERENCES [1] J. F. Marchman, N. Interatep, E. Skelton and W. H. Mason, "An investigation of CTOL dual-mode PAVE concepts", Technical Report to NASA Langley Research Center, 2002 [2] F. I. Romli and H. Rashid, "Point-to-point transportation analysis for domestic travel in Malaysia," in Engineering Management and Industrial Engineering, Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2015, pp. 231-236 [3] A. Z. Abidin, H. Mansor, R. D. R. Ahmad, R. Abdullah and I. 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