Your Office Rooftop Could Soon Be An Uber Aircraft Landing Site
Uber may soon be flying high above its competition.
The ride-sharing forerunner is teaming up with NASA to develop an aerial taxi project called Uber Elevate or UberAir. The small planes, which will be equipped with wing-mounted propellers, will take off and land vertically on building rooftops where they will also pick up and drop off customers, Space reports.
The move could have significant implications for the future of cities, which are only just starting to prepare for the influx of driverless cars, an industry that is estimated to grow from $3B in 2015 to $96B by 2025, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Thanks to this latest innovation, office landlords planning to rethink the use of their parking lots in preparation for autonomous vehicles may soon need to consider revamping their rooftops as well. Uber hopes the flying-taxi concept will take off in 2020 and will begin in three cities: Los Angeles, Dallas and Dubai.
Beyond expanding its business in the air and on the road, Uber could also influence the future of retail and warehouse operations. The company is currently gauging whether or not its drivers would be interested in taking on tasks for customers. The structure would be similar to TaskRabbit and could include any on-demand jobs ranging from healthcare services, to retail or warehouse tasks, Recode reports.
How or when these services will roll out is still to be determined.
