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\nThe Virginia-based Mercatus Center just released its fourth annual 50-state drone commerce report.\u00a0 As with its three previous reports, this year\u2019s edition seeks to rank all 50 states in terms of their readiness to advance the drone industry, as measured by five characteristics:<\/p>\n
The center\u2019s chief investigator, Brent Skorup, assigns points to each element, and then each state is rated and ranked based on its combined score, with a maximum of 100 points possible.\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the state rankings have remained unchanged since the center\u2019s 2021-2022 report, but there were some notable areas of progress, too.<\/p>\n
Four states \u2013 Arkansas, Florida, Massachusetts and Maine\u00a0 \u2013 experienced 20-point jumps in their respective scores, which allowed them to move much further up the national rankings.\u00a0 Arkansas, which previously ranked 3rd at 70 points jumped to first place with 90 points \u2013 the highest ranking achieved by any state in the four years of ranking to date.\u00a0 An even bigger jump was recorded for Massachusetts, which went from 22nd in the rankings last year to 8th place in 2023.<\/p>\n
Two other states \u2013 Florida and Maine \u2013 which had placed in the bottom tenth in the rankings in 2022, jumped 10 points.\u00a0 Both states went from a tie for 41st in the rankings to a tie for 35th in 2023.<\/p>\n
What accounts for these shifts?<\/p>\n
In the case of Arkansas, it was the state\u2019s establishment of an executive-level task force to propel additional drone development, including a move by the state legislature to authorize drone inspections of all major public infrastructure to safeguard them from attack as well as to keep abreast of possible damage and deterioration.<\/p>\n
State and local law enforcement agencies in Arkansas are also expanding drone use to track criminal suspects, find lost and missing persons and support SWAT operations.\u00a0 In addition, Walmart, the nation\u2019s largest retailer, which has its national headquarter in Arkansas, hopes to expand its retail drone deliveries begun last year across the entire state in 2023.<\/p>\n
Massachusetts jumped to 8th place for the same reason as Arkansas: the state decided to create an executive-level drone task force charged with providing new business incentives to drone companies.\u00a0 Previously, it had an office in the state DOT to foster drone use among government agencies, which is the case in several other US states.\u00a0 The same is true for Florida and Maine: neither had a state drone task force in 2021-2022, but both states created one in 2022-2023, in theory, spurring more drone commercial development.<\/p>\n
Skorup\u2019s report notes that a drone task force is an important step \u2013 but it\u2019s still only a step.\u00a0 Many states have passed laws to allow for drone \u201chighways\u201d above state and local roads and to compensate landowners for commercial and public safety access \u2013 without having a state task force in place.\u00a0 In fact, Florida and Maine, unlike Arkansa and Massachsuets, have yet to institute these important legal and regulatory changes, and neither has a drone sandbox to attract drone companies to develop and test their aircraft within the state.\u00a0 That\u2019s why their Mercatus ranking, while progressing, is still relatively low.<\/p>\n
Overall, the latest Mercatus center report finds continuing unevenness among states in their commitment to promoting drone industry growth.\u00a0 Concerns over unwarranted drone surveillance by police agencies, infringement on private property rights, or invasions of personal privacy are still widespread in some states and regions \u2013 especially in New England and the South.\u00a0 By contrast, most states in the mid-Atlantic \u2013 especially Maryland and Virginia \u2013 are extremely drone friendly, placing them in the top 15 of the national rankings..\u00a0 And upper Midwest states like North Dakota, Minnesota and Montana still rank among the most supportive of drone industry development \u2013 3rd, 7th and 11th, respectively.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, Skorup sees a growing number of states making progress in 2024.\u00a0 One issue of great concern \u2013 how to balance the FAA\u2019s overarching legal authority for regulating the nation\u2019s airspaces, with the desire of states and localities for a greater say in implementation, is being resolved, giving commercial drone companies and their clients more assurances of support and greater clarity about how to proceed, he notes.<\/p>\n
Another pending breakthrough is the increased willingness of the FAA \u2013 under pressure from congress and industry stakeholders \u2013 to grant Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) authority to drone companies to fly at greater distances across different jurisdictions, without the need for remote piloting or ongoing visual monitoring and safety checks.\u00a0 Many companies granted partial waivers or exemptions thus far would like to expand their pilot operations beyond a single company and its limited sphere of operations to reduce costs and achieve scale.\u00a0 That\u2019s likely to be the case in 2024 and beyond.<\/p>\n
Drone hold-outs like Rhode Island, Mississippi and Nebraska \u2013 which have ranked at the bottom of the Mercatus list for years \u2013 will persist.\u00a0 And given the state of the economy and the current investment crunch in the tech sector, progress in other states could remain slower than hoped.\u00a0 But as more states and their citizens come to appreciate the extraordinary commercial benefits that UAVs can provide \u2013 reduced fuel and labor costs, increased operational efficiency, lower safety risks, and enhanced sustainability, among them\u00a0 \u2013 barriers to further progress will continue to slip away, allowing even more states to forge ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Virginia-based Mercatus Center just released its fourth annual 50-state drone commerce report.\u00a0 As with its three previous reports, this year\u2019s edition seeks to rank all 50 states in terms of their readiness to advance the drone industry, as measured by five characteristics: Whether an executive-level task force is in place to promote the drone… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}