Do drones in cities make people feel unsafe? Here’s what we found

If a drone was flying overhead while you were walking down a city street, would you feel safe?

What if it was not one drone, but dozens? What if they were moving at high speeds, weaving between buildings?

Public perception of safety is a key concern for the successful integration of advanced air mobility, and this has been shown to be the case in multiple countries.

Key aspects that influence perceived safety include how close drones fly to buildings, their flight speed, and the proximity of drones to people on the ground.

To better understand these perceptions, researchers from the ImAFUSA project used a specially adapted virtual reality tool developed by project partner ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, with faculty, staff, and students at KTH Royal Institute of Technology engaged in the survey.

What we found

Preliminary results show an overall acceptance of drones in terms of perceived safety, with a large number of participants indicating that they felt “safe” or “very safe” in general, with an increased level of perceived safety as flight altitude increased or flight speed decreased. Distance from buildings was shown to not be a perceived issue.

What is surprising about these results, although preliminary, is indeed the fact that such a small number of participants in the survey felt “unsafe” in an environment where drones were flying.

This stands in contrast with the widely believed (albeit not actually substantiated) idea that people consider drones flying in urban environments to pose a safety risk.

These preliminary results challenge common assumptions about urban drone safety concerns and offer fresh insights into how people actually perceive this emerging technology. As the ImAFUSA project continues to explore public attitudes and acceptance of innovative air mobility technologies, understanding how people perceive drones in urban spaces remains essential to designing citizen-centred solutions.

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