Uber to test flying taxi in Los Angeles by 2020

Uber announced Wednesday that it will start its ambitious flying taxi in Los Angeles (L.A.) by 2020 to deal with the city's traffic problem and pilot its aerial taxi service.

When Uber's chief product officer Jeff Holden revealed the plan at the Web Summit, a technology conference in Lisbon, the company also posted a 100-second-long video clip advertising the flying taxi project with the name Elevate.

In the video, a working mom books a flight through her Uber app and goes to a "skyport" on the roof of a nearby building. After her order code is scanned in her cell phone, she gets into a Uber flying taxi, a plane-helicopter hybrid aircraft with fixed wings and tilt prop-rotors.

The flying taxi takes the mom back to another "roof airport", where a Uber vehicle taxi is waiting for her. The mom gets back home to his kids without suffering any stress from daily commute.

The company predicted that a one-and-a-half hour car journey from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to the Lakers' home court Staples Center could take less than 30 minutes using a combination of flying cars and regular cars.

Moreover, Holden said it would actually be cheaper to fly with Uber than your own car.

L.A., the second-largest U.S. metropolitan area, is the third city announced to be working with Uber on the program after Dallas-Fort Worth and Dubai.

"L.A. is one of the most congested cities in the world today," said Holden, "They essentially have no mass transit infrastructure. This type of approach allows us to very inexpensively deploy a mass transit method that actually doesn't make traffic worse."

"L.A. is the perfect testing ground for this new technology, and I look forward to seeing it grow in the coming years," said L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti in a statement provided by Uber.

Holden also said that Uber has signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA to create a brand-new air traffic control system to manage these low-flying, possibly autonomous aircraft.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)