Forecasting Traffic Volume of Urban Logistics Drones in Low-altitude Airspace

In order to estimate the demand of urban parcel delivery using unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and the corresponding traffic volume in low-altitude airspace, a method is proposed for predicting traffic volume of UAVs delivering parcels based on the consideration of the public's intention and a binary Logistic model. The demand of instant delivery using UAVs will be estimated by considering the public's intention and parcel labels(i.e. whether the package goes to domestic or foreign, whether it goes to urban or rural areas, whether the carrier is a drone, whether it is below a specific weight, etc.). A case study of five cities, including Guangzhou and Beijing, is completed to forecast the parcel volume that can be delivered by UAVs and the corresponding traffic volume of UAVs in the low-altitude airspace from 2025 to 2050. The results show that the accuracy of the prediction accuracy of the public's intention on UAV distribution is 81.7% and the demand of urban parcel delivery using UAVs will be on the rise from 2025 to 2050. The population of urban residents, economic development, the public's intention and other factors will affect the development of UAV-based parcel distribution. Study results show that the reliability of forecasting the demand of UAV delivery can be improved by taking account into the public's intention on UAV distribution and such predictions can be used to support the low-altitude airspace planning, in order to accommodate the rise of parcel delivery using UAVs.