French aerospace company Airbus is planning to test a driverless ‘flying taxi’ prototype by the end of next year in order to address urban traffic congestion.

Designed under the Vahana project, the autonomous prototype is currently being developed by Airbus’ innovation wing A3.

Known as CityAirbus, the flying driverless taxi can be called via a smartphone app.

After booking a seat on a CityAirbus, customers can go on to the nearest helipad and climb aboard to reach their destination along with other passengers on board.

“In as little as ten years, we could have products on the market that revolutionise urban travel for millions of people.”

A3 project executive Rodin Lyasoff said: “Many of the technologies needed, such as batteries, motors and avionics are most of the way there.”

The company also noted that Vahana would require a reliable sense-and-avoid technology, an airborne edition of the self-driving systems that are still in an unsatisfactory state on the ground.

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Lyasoff added: “In as little as ten years, we could have products on the market that revolutionise urban travel for millions of people.”

Formally started since February, the Vahana project’s team have already settled on a vehicle design and is beginning to build and test vehicle subsystems.

It is estimated that by 2030, 60% of the world’s population will live in cities, which is 10% more than current statistics.

Airbus revealed its plan on the self-driving aircraft on its website, in an article titled 'Future of urban mobility: My kind of flyover'.

In February, Airbus Helicopters entered into a memorandum of understanding with Singapore’s Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) to conduct a drone parcel delivery test on the campus of the National University of Singapore by mid-next year.