INDUSTRY BLOG

From Roads to Airways, How Will Governments Successfully Manage Drones in Their Community?

You may not realize it today, but drones are making state and local government departments safer and more efficient than ever. Across the country, these departments are embracing drones in a variety of infrastructure projects such as landscape analysis, bridge inspection, roadway construction, and water main repairs. Bridges and active roadways in some areas are becoming too dangerous to send people to do inspections and thankfully you can now send a drone to take pictures and gather data before ever needing to send a person.

Drones are now saving public works, transportation, and engineering departments time, money and manpower all while increasing safety. In fact, as of 2019, according to a survey from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), at least 35 state departments of transportation are adopting drones in the field, with at least 20 states using them daily for tasks like monitoring roadway construction, performing pavement inspection, monitoring traffic control and inspecting high-mast light poles.

But as more and more drones enter our communities and the national airspace, governments will need to ensure the safe integration of drones into their day-to-day operations and ultimately into their communities. Airspace Link’s community FLYSAFE Program does just that. A turnkey, release-ready solution, powered by the AirHub platform, that enables enhanced situational awareness and internal de-confliction of operations within government departments. The FLYSAFE Program also allows government agencies to easily publish current drone rules, policies, advisories, and other important information about drone operations to the community at large.

Tune in August 31, 2021 at 2:00 pm ET for an Airspace Link hosted webinar about the FLYSAFE Program, featuring industry leaders and Esri’s Terry Bills.

About the author

Christopher Thomas, Director of Government Markets on the Industry Solutions team at Esri team focused on state and local disciplines. He has over 30 years of experience working in and with national, state and local governments implementing technology. As a strategist and subject matter expert, Christopher works to identify emerging trends GIS can support.

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