UTM Ecosystems’ Readiness Index 2024 Report

GUTMA is proud to announce the publication of the UTM Ecosystems’ Readiness Index Report 2024. The report provides an in-depth global analysis of UTM ecosystem readiness levels at the national scale, highlighting best practices to enable commercial and scalable BVLOS drone services and areas that need improvement. 

The report emerges in a context where a structured framework for data collection and analysis has been missing. To address this issue, the dedicated GUTMA Task Force, in collaboration with PwC, developed a global benchmarking methodology consisting of six dimensions: 

  • Legislation
  • Governance
  • Strategy
  • Operations
  • Technology
  • Business and market

For each dimension, the report identifies Maturity Parameters (Readiness Index) to score the ecosystems of each analyzed country, mapping the best practices for scaling commercial BVLOS drone services as well as highlighting the dimensions that require improvement. The countries are grouped by region: Africa, Asia, Australia and Oceania, Europe, Middle East, North and South America.

Key Findings

The report identifies global and regional leaders and specific actions to take to advance UTM ecosystems globally.

  • The European Union leads in legislation with its U-Space Regulations (U-Space Regulations 2021/664-666)
  • Japan exemplifies effective governance through its culture of cooperation among stakeholders. 
  • Switzerland further showcases effective governance through its SUSI (Swiss U-Space Implementation) initiative.
  • Belgium stands out in the strategy dimension with its comprehensive approach to integrating drone operations.
  • The United States sets a benchmark in operations with its deployment of commercial BVLOS drone services.
  • Australia serves as an example in the business and market development dimension.
Figure 1 – The countries are divided into five tiers, where 1 means that the country is quite mature in all dimensions, while 5 means nascent state of commercial and scalable BVLOS drone services and UTM implementation.

However, the report also pinpoints critical areas where improvement is needed. Significantly, suggestions include the introduction of BVLOS-oriented regulations, defining harmonized frameworks with clear roles, responsibilities and standards, greater private-sector engagement by public authorities and new or updated strategies at national and organizational levels, which take into account the latest UTM technologies and market trends. Other needs include Advanced UTM systems with dynamic airspace management and business tools like market-sizing methodologies and value chain analyses.

Contributing GUTMA Task Force Members and organizations

The publication of the report was made possible thanks to the work of Task Force leads Sebastian Babiarz (GUTMA Co-President) and Tomasz Kłosowicz (GUTMA Task Force leader), with the support of Koen De Vos (GUTMA Secretary-General) and the Contributing industry expert Philip Butterworth-Hayes (Unmanned Airspace) and the following GUTMA Members: 

Airwayz, ARCGine Technologies, CAA Israel, DroneUp, Ericsson, FOCA, Heron Airbridge, High Lander, INVOLI, OneSky Systems, PwC Drone Powered Solutions, Resilienx, R-SYS, SkyGrid, TruWeather Solutions, Unifly.

Access the report here

GUTMA welcomes any feedback. Potential omissions do not imply the absence of UTM-related initiatives in excluded regions and countries. For any corrections or additions, please contact GUTMA at Koen De Vos — GUTMA Secretary General at kdevos@gutma.org and Tomasz Kłosowicz, PwC Drone Powered Solutions — Task Force Leader at tomasz.klosowicz@pwc.com.