Like a scene from “The Jetsons,” commuters in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, may soon climb aboard automated flying taxis, soaring over busy streets
and past the desert city’s gleaming skyscrapers, all — quite literally — at the push of a button.
The drone “is not just a model but it has really flown in Dubai skies,” Mattar Al Tayer, the director general of Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority, said on Monday, adding
that the emirate would “spare no effort to launch” autonomous aerial vehicles by July.
Passenger drones, capable of carrying a single rider
and a small suitcase, will begin buzzing above the emirate as early as July, according to the director of the city’s transportation authority, part of an ambitious plan to increase driverless technology.
The craft can carry a 220-pound passenger, according to a promotional video produced by the Roads
and Transport Authority, which depicts a man boarding the vessel, buckling into a race car-style harness and tapping his destination on a touch screen before taking off.