Customers’ raised expectations, government policies, a spike in fuel prices and technology innovation are converging to enable convenient, affordable, safe and environmentally sustainable mobility as a service (MaaS). MaaS solutions help connect the different phases of the door-to-door mobility experience, from planning to booking, payment, navigation and information queries, with seamless integrations across modes of transportation.
MaaS is not new, but it has been plagued by technical interoperability challenges and difficulty in finding the right business models that can push mobility ecosystem stakeholders — transit authorities, car OEMs, payment providers, transport network companies — to collaborate and share data.
Good Practices for MaaS Ecosystem Innovation
IDC research shows that MaaS is reaching an inflection point. Best practices are emerging among public transportation authorities and transportation operators to deliver on the promise of enabling customers to travel in a convenient way, when it suits them and at a reasonable cost.
At the same time, MaaS is enabling transport operators and planners to optimise the use of capital-intensive asset capacity, launch new revenue-generating services and encourage a modal shift to public modes of transport among citizens.
It all starts with the customer. User-centric MaaS apps enable travellers to build their unique mobility profile based on personal preferences, financial profile, physical characteristics and past behaviour. Service providers must recognise, serve and safeguard the individual preferences of each user to deliver truly personalised MaaS offerings.
Cities such as Genoa have deployed mobile-first user apps that provide a single point of access to information and services while on the move.
To book and pay for their journeys directly in the MaaS app, without the need to switch to a transport operator app, stakeholders must share data and define contractual models that benefit the whole ecosystem. In Spain, train operator Renfe has launched a door-to-door booking MaaS solution (the dōcō app) underpinned by a platform that enables actors across the mobility ecosystem to collaborate openly, from micromobility service providers, to ride-sharing apps, to technology manufacturers and payment system providers.
To enable rapid innovation and scale these MaaS data platforms to process, store, integrate and analyse vast swathes of data, transportation ecosystem companies such as Entur in Norway are moving away from monolithic, legacy systems to cloud-native solutions that enable data sharing at scale and agile innovation.
Once data is aggregated and information is made accessible through platforms, transportation authorities can use it to build a mobility digital twin of the city that can help with traffic forecasting and simulation, traffic/city planning, infrastructure maintenance and asset management, and logistics resource planning. Data sharing can also support the development of new services and businesses.
Further reading:
IDC PeerScape: Practices to Successfully Implement Mobility as a Service