Drone and Urban Air Mobility Strategy 2024-2029 overview

Vision:

Dublin City Council to be a European leader in the delivery of drone based public-sector services and to enable a wider ecosystem in which drone innovation can flourish to the benefit of all citizens in a safe, inclusive, affordable, and environmentally responsible way.

Mission- delivery of the following benefits:

• Improve DCC services, enabling the scaled-up use of drones for tasks such as planning enforcement, emergency response, environmental monitoring and protection, asset management, and illegal dumping.
• Increase public trust and the responsible use of drones promoting broader community 0benefits of drones; prioritising safety, privacy and ethics. 
• Ensuring that all drones services adhere to the highest safety standards and ethical principles in their operations.
• Support innovation in new drone services that supports economic growth opportunity and wider city sustainability goals.

Core Values:

• Health and Safety: The safety of how drone services are delivered 
• Innovation:  Explore the potential of new drone innovations to enhance service delivery 
• Sustainability: Promote environmental responsibility and address climate change challenges
• Transparency: Be open and transparent in all aspects of the drone operations

Principles guiding the Strategy:

• Data Privacy - Protecting the privacy of citizens and ensuring responsible data collection and usage
• Public Engagement - Engage with stakeholders in a meaningful way to understand their concerts and priorities
• Regulatory Compliance - Adhering to all applicable local, national, and EU regulations and maintaing a strong relationship with the IAA

The Drone Unit will determine which current DCC operations could be enhanced by applying drones, taking into account factors such as direct cost, environmental impact, staff hours, resources required and safety benefits. There will also be significant opportunities for service redesign, improvement and transformation that will be facilitated by the introduction or expansion of drone technology. The City Council will have two pivotal roles to play in this context as a provider of drone services and as an eco-system manager, to allow third-party suppliers to extend their operations in the city. This Strategy will be executed via the following action plan, and it will be guided by the internal High-Level Drone Steering Group.

Detailed Roadmap (short, medium and long term plan)

Short term (12 months):

Establish a Drone Unit: 

• Develop a workforce plan to determine exact staffing and resource requirements to establish a dedicated Drone Unit.
• Further develop the Drone Unit business case: Sign off on the establishment of the unit and governance model. 
• Skills and technical assessment: Establish a baseline for understanding skills and technology which will need to be developed in house and where niche external suppliers will be required (complex mapping projects, niche surveys and to test new innovative use cases). 

Internal Organisation: 

• Develop and clarify roles and responsibilities with other DCC sections/units requiring drone services and other DCC standalone drone operators (Dublin Fire Brigade, National Building Control Office, Dublin Civil Defence), the council’s Data and Analytics Unit and Smart Cities Unit, the IAA, and external research organisations. 
• Create a central register of all drone operations across the organisation. 
• Continue to expand cost-benefit analysis for costs of traditional approaches versus the cost of drones carrying out the same role, and establish metrics to determine improvement in service quality, efficiency and delivery/turnaround time that result from adoption and expansion of drone use. 
• Develop policy and operational guidance material for all DCC drone services. 
• Initial website development as central information and communications outlet with the public. 
• Help define requirements around centralised data storing/sharing system, and develop a policy around safe data storing/sharing. 
• Support communications campaigns, external stakeholder engagement and citizen surveys. 

Innovation and Research: 

• Engage with academic research partners and the IAA through innovation partnerships to conduct experimental trials on scaling up drone operations in urban environment, including addressing issues such as privacy, environmental impact and safety concerns. To start addressing the future integration of drones in urban settings, DCC, in collaboration with the IAA and Maynooth University will initiate a 2-year Drone Innovation Partnership (DIP) project starting in Q2 2024. This initiative is co-funded by Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, with the aim to develop an overarching drone framework and policy recommendations. This will support the scale up of drone operations in urban environments, encompassing inputs for Policymaking, Innovation and Operations, involving all the relevant stakeholders across public and private sectors. 
• Identify and apply for new funding opportunities to support the work and objectives of the unit

Collaboration and Regulatory Compliance: 

• Work with the IAA to determine how flight authorisations for more complex DCC drone operations can be streamlined. 
• Work within the Local Government sector and central government to agree common approaches to address how low-level airspace is managed (i.e. landing and take-off zones, define specific areas where drone activities are permitted or restricted, and infrastructure required to support). There will be a need to develop planning guidelines to support drone infrastructure in new buildings and developments. + Collaborate with other Public Services agencies to share best practice and support each other on adoption levels.
• Collaborate with other European Union cities networks such as Urban-Air-Mobility Initiative Cities Community (UIC2) to share best practice and learnings (see p. 29-30). + Educate the Public about drone applications and promote responsible drone use, inform about the benefits, safety guidelines, and legal requirements associated with drones though awareness campaigns, workshops, or community events. 

Medium term (1-3 years):

• Plan for and establish a regulatory and technical framework for a drone eco-system in Dublin, building on the trials identified with research partners in year one, where third party operators can develop their business in line with identified community needs. 
• Develop a foundational U-space with the IAA to manage drone traffic in. Set out the technology, institutional and business case for such a system, identifying key roles for all stakeholders. 
• Plan for integrating Urban Air Mobility (UAM) services within the DCC’s strategic transport planning function.

• Expand Drone Unit capabilities to manage more complex DCC drone operations – including BVLOS and night flights. 

Long term (3 years - 5 years and beyond):

• Collaborate with partners including IAA to support trials of an UAM network of drones and VCAs in the DCC area.
• To review commercial viability and roadmap for UAM services in Dublin 
• Agree responsibilities with the IAA and AirNav Ireland around deployment of a city wide UTM system which could have the potential to manage multiple, autonomous drone and VCA services. 

Instigating experimental trials of U-space and complex drone operations, including autonomous and swarm operations for detailed collection of data.