Urban Air Mobility Safety: A Matrix Structured Review

Urban air mobility (UAM) can reshape city transit but concurrently introduces complex and unprecedented safety challenges. With regard thereto, this study involves a systematic examination of the state of UAM safety through a structured survey of the relevant literature; thereafter, a novel structured matrix-based classification and analysis framework (“UAM-SafeM”) is proposed. This framework is used to analyze safety from two complementary perspectives: the operational dimensions of UAM, encompassing flight, airway, operational, and societal safety; and the core analytical process, wherein risk sources, assets, and mitigation technologies are examined. Through mapping of the process onto the operational architecture, this approach ensures a comprehensive examination. A thorough review of potential risks and state-of-the-art mitigation technologies is then conducted across the four safety layers, with findings from a wide body of literature considered. Critically, UAM-SafeM underscores that UAM safety is shaped not only within individual layers, but also by interactions between layers, including risk propagation and mitigation interdependencies. On the basis of these relationships, research gaps are herein identified, and a matrix-informed roadmap is proposed to support scalable, safe, and socially acceptable deployment.