New plans are being put forth that could have drones stationed on rooftops all over Dublin, on standby to respond to crises, as part of plans to propagate the unmanned aerospace industry. To help prepare Dublin and other European cities for the expanding use of commercial and public sector drones, Dublin City Council, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), Lero, the Research Ireland Centre for Software, and Maynooth University are initiating a two-year comprehensive study. The project will investigate new applications of drones and inform a growth strategy for the industry, while addressing issues of safety, security, environment, privacy and other areas of concern.
Jamie Cudden, overseeing the council’s Smart Dublin project, revealed that Dublin City Council has been employing drones for around five years already. The drones have served as invaluable tools, utilised for various tasks such as tracking building projects, monitoring active travel initiatives, and performing building inspections in a more efficient and cost-effective way. He expressed the council’s eagerness to expand the use of drones, specifically as immediate responders to emergencies.
“We’re exploring the idea of having a network of drones stationed on rooftops all over the city – ‘drones in boxes,’ so to say. They can then come out whenever necessary to respond to an emergency situation, relay the information and then return to their respective boxes,” he explained.
He added that one of the council’s focus areas is water safety, primarily for the river Liffey. “Should anyone fall into the river, the drone could quickly relay their exact location to the emergency services,” he said.
He stated that there was an immense prospect to explore the wider use of drones in the field of medicine, such as for ferrying blood supplies to health care facilities. Currently, a significant amount of these tasks are accomplished by employing taxis or motorcycle couriers, a process frequently hampered by traffic congestion.
He also emphasised the impending surge in the commercial utilisation of drones, especially for the purpose of making deliveries. With this in mind, he urged that there was a need to prep Dublin for this evolution. Drawing parallels from the difficulties some cities experienced with electric scooters, including issues such as poor usage and cluttering of public spaces, he warned about the possibility of similar problems with drones if preemptive measures were not put in place.
He also mentioned that as drones become increasingly ubiquitous, it will lead to pertinent questions about their ownership, concerns about noise pollution, safety, privacy, and security. His stance was that it is imperative to take steps to set up regulatory frameworks for safely governing the use of these devices over the city’s airspace.