Scenic Rim bidding for Qld’s first Uber Air service

A southeast Queensland mayor has approached Uber to get its flying rideshare to his town, in a bid to cut commutes from hours to minutes.

FLYING ride share services would conquer the crippling lack of public transport systems in Brisbane’s regional hinterland, Scenic Rim Mayor Greg Christensen says, and open up more space on roads for essential heavy loads.

Cr Christensen has spoken to Uber Air, pitching to be the first area in Queensland to have the service, which is to be trialled in Melbourne and two US cities.

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He said the “big idea” could be years away, but southeast Queensland needed to start looking at innovative ways of improving transport

He said instead of using the region’s windy roads to get to work, Scenic Rim travellers could hop aboard an aerial rideshare to join the main train lines from the Gold Coast and Springfield.

Cr Christensen faces some competition to be the first in Queensland with the service, with his Gold Coast counterpart Tom Tate saying last week he would be writing to Uber to join the service.

An Uber Air EmbraerX prototype aircraft flying over Melbourne

Cr Tate said the air scheme could get travellers from the Gold Coast to Brisbane Airport in 15 minutes.

According to the Uber Air whitepaper, its wants to fly electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft that are lighter and quieter than conventional helicopters.

Uber Air aims to have its first trial in Melbounre next year before launching commerical services in 2023.

Cr Christensen said it was time to stop thinking in terms of small improvements in conventional road and rail and look for radical alternatives that offer big improvements.

He said his vision was to use the air taxis to move commuters to what he hoped would be fast rail connections, rather than straight into the Brisbane CBD.

Flying direct would only add to congestion further along the route, he said.

“There’s a lot of free space above an already congested road network that doesn’t get utilised,” Cr Christensen said.

Scenic Rim Mayor Greg Christensen

“I have a distributed region that has small population centres that doesn’t make the threshold for the state to provide public transport, and if it did, because of the road network it’s still quite slow and cumbersome to connect.

“When you take to the air, that technology would allow small scale public transport options.

“Given the travel speed that they’re talking about, because you don’t have to go down a windy road, Tamborine Mountain could have a takeoff point that could connect to say Helensvale railway station and get people there in a 15-minute trip.

“You’re free of traffic, you’re on location where you’re immediately connected into the rail network of the state and the west of my region somewhere like Boonah in about the same time, could be at Springfield connecting onto the rail at Springfield station.

“These are big ideas, but we need to start thinking about some big ideas because we can never catch up the investment for ground based commuter solutions.”