Helicopter As Future City Public Transport Solution

As more and more traffic jam in the city especially at rush hours, helicopter as public transportation could become the answer. Especially for a big helicopter that can carry more than 50 passengers.

In the big city like Jakarta, people are living in suburban area while working in Jakarta. When working days they commute about 25 to 100 km just to go to the office and go home.

Big helicopter like Russian made Mil Mi 26 can carry 90-150 passenger. If it is operated as heli-commuter, the cost of helicopter ticket per passenger per trip is about the same as the cost of taxi with about the same travel distance. While helicopter can travel a lot faster than land transportation. And helicopter is still operational when flood.

When holiday, the city will be less busy. Helicopter can be utilized for holiday transportation. Because traffic jam also is happened at some tourist attraction areas when holiday. This is cannot be done with commuter train, when holiday commuter train will has minimum passenger.

Helicopter is not cheap. It is always more expensive than fixed wing airplane with the same capacity. Because helicopter has much more moving parts than fixed wing airplane.

But because helicopter needs only helipad then the total cost to operate can be much lower than fixed wing airplane.

Helipad is much smaller than runway, and it can be built above a building. So helipad cost can be covered by renting the building space, installing billboard, etc..

Heliport is a helipad with support equipment, passenger area, office, parking area, etc.. Heliport can be built near or above bus station and or commuter train station, etc.. Therefore, passenger can be easily transit from helicopter to other transportation.

By getting some rental rates, the ticket cost for each passenger per trip of 50 km can be estimated as below chart.

Line 1 to 4 are for rental with 100% load factor, because assumed the renter will ensure that the passenger is full to optimize the cost.

Line 5 to 7 are estimated for regular public transport. Line 5 is rental Mil Mi 26 operate in Pakistan to help earth quake victims. Line 6 and 7 are estimated with lower rental rate to get lower ticket cost.

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