Helicopters Over Uber And Lyft? Ridesharing May Change Due To Heavy Traffic

Crippling traffic congestion in major metropolitan cities continues to be an increasingly important issue for city planners and lawmakers dealing with rapid population increases. According to a February report by GPS manufacturer TomTom, Bangkok and Mexico City are among the two worst cities in the world for traffic, while Los Angeles has the worst traffic in the U.S.

Finding alternative ways to ease congestion in high-traffic cities has grown into a top priority. One Brazilian company is pushing to get helicopters off the ground by making flying to work affordable and accessible.

Voom, a Sao Paulo-based company that launched in April, has been experimenting with air transportation similar to the model used by services like Uber. The helicopter flights are based on distance and the passenger's weight, allowing for affordable accommodations to customers to avoid congested roadways.

Sao Paulo is South America's biggest city and home to 12 million residents not including millions more in the suburbs. As a result, almost 6 million vehicles populate the congested roadways and create massive headaches for commuters, though there are hundreds of helipads atop skyscrapers to ease traffic. In 2011, CNBC quoted a Sao Paolo resident that claimed without helicopters city traffic would be "chaos."

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Launched by European ride-sharing company Airbus, Voom isn't the first company to use helicopters to launch commuters into the air, but it may be among the fastest growing service.

"Our goal is to make helicopter transport accessible to more people so that the helicopter is seen as an alternative," Uma Subramanian, Voom's executive director, told Agence France-Press.

Subramanian added that Latin American roads force commuters to "lose up to 10 hours a week" in traffic.

"We have plans to expand to other cities in Latin America (Mexico City) as well as the U.S. in the coming months," Jamie Viggiano, Head of Marketing for Voom, told International Business Times in an email. "We are currently in the process of expansion and, so far, the process has been a relatively smooth one. We are working with local regulators to ensure full compliance."

According to the Voom website, "the cost of your journey is based on the travel time of your flight plus any ground infrastructure fees," and once that information is booked, the total cost is presented.

In an April report by Fast Company, Subramanian said that the deal was aimed mostly at executives. Even by reducing the helicopter ride prices by 80 percent, a trip from Sao Paulo's city center to the airport would still exceed cab fairs by three to five times — $160 to $240.

One customer traveling to San Paulo for business said that his 20-mile trip into the city takes nine minutes and costs $150.

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It may be still early to determine if helicopters will become more accessible in U.S. cities due to high costs and other factors. Helicopter flights from New York-based BLADE are often quite expensive — running up to $695 — and residents living near launch pads have complained about the noise.

But in cities like New York, traffic problems are getting worse, particularly for long trips. Fox 5 New York reported last week that the explosion of ridesharing companies like Lyft and Uber have added to traffic woes.