Equity analysis of urban transportation network resilience with urban air mobility integration

Abstract

Faced with chronic traffic congestion and spatial inequities, global megacities urgently need urban air mobility (UAM) integration to enhance transportation resilience and promote equitable mobility. This study constructs a constrained clustering model to identify vertiport locations, considering no-fly zones and integrating passenger flow demand and point of interest (POI) distribution. By constructing a two-layer transport network and employing percolation theory, we systematically evaluate how vertiport deployment strategies impact regional-level resilience and equity. The findings of the Beijing case reveal the relationship between deployment scale and resilience equity. Moderate deployment helps to improve and compensate for regional resilience differences, balance efficiency and fairness, but large-scale deployment exacerbates inequality. This research underscores the importance of strategic and non-uniform vertiport siting to mitigate urban transport disparities, providing theoretical insights and policy recommendations for equitable UAM development.