Mobility as a Service Where do we go from here?

Carol Schweiger, President, Schweiger Consulting LLC examines if the MaaS is still alive. According to her, while the “success” of MaaS is questionable, it still appears to have strong backing by the governmental entities across the world, such as the city and regional governments and public transport agencies. Carol has nearly 45 years of experience in transportation consulting and is nationally and internationally recognized in the areas of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and Advanced Public Transportation Systems.

There have been numerous articles in late 2023 and in 2024 that suggest that mobility as a service (MaaS) is dead. There are four major reasons for this recent sentiment: While over the past ten years, there have been many MaaS pilots, most of the pilot programs did not continue past the pilot stage; secondly, several MaaS platform development companies lost their venture capital funding and either went out of business or became consultants instead of platform developers; most MaaS pilots did not produce results that were based on clearly identified goals and objectives or hypotheses, that showed significant usage, and were thought to be sustainable; and lastly, MaaS was subject to a lot of hype as the concept “took off” without determining what was needed to prove the concept. It is worth noting how we got to this point and whether or not there is a sustainable future for MaaS.

There appears to be a future for MaaS, although it may not be called MaaS in the future and may not look like the original concept. This has been suggested recently by several prominent MaaS researchers and other stakeholders (e.g., it could be called Mobility as a Feature).

– Carol Schweiger

Europe has seen the largest number of MaaS pilots and deployments since the concept was introduced in Sweden and Finland around 2014. The development of MaaS in the US and the Asia-Pacific region has been much slower, although there are several pockets of deployment in Japan. In India, planning for MaaS was spearheaded in 2021 through the creation of a framework for MaaS in Indian cities (Narendra Verma and Tim-Sören Hohmann, “Creating a Framework for Mobility as a Service (MaaS) in Indian Cities”).

While the “success” of MaaS is questionable, it still appears to have strong backing by some governmental entities across the world, such as city and regional governments and public transport agencies. Several of the most notable locations moving forward with MaaS is Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) in the UK, the Solent Future Transport Zone (comprising Portsmouth, Southampton, South Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in the UK), Berlin, Germany, and Brisbane, Australia. TfWM is planning to launch a MaaS app some time in 2024, while each of these other locations already have a MaaS system in operation and are enhancing it (Breeze in the Solent region, Jelbi in Berlin, and Odin Pass in Brisbane).

Further, the MaaS Alliance, which is part of ERTICO, continues to “facilitate a single and open market for MaaS and full deployment of MaaS services through a shared work programme and by engaging transport operators, service providers, public authorities and users”.(https://maas-alliance.eu/). Finally, MaaS standards and specifications are still actively being developed and used.

MaaS Standards

The most prevalent MaaS standard is the Transport Operator to MaaS Provider (TOMP) Application Programming Interface (API), an open-source API developed in the Netherlands under the auspices of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water. “For MaaS to be successful, transport operators are required to share their transport services and availability of their assets in a digital form. To facilitate MaaS providers and thus enable the deployment of MaaS services, transport operators are also required to standardize the digital form to facilitate access to their information. The TOMP API is a standardized and technical interface between MaaS providers and transport operators.”

Japan has continued to encourage the development and implementation of MaaS. At the end of March 2023, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transportation and Tourism issued their most recent guidance document entitled ‘Guidelines for MaaS Linkage Version 3.0’. “In order to facilitate data collaboration within the MaaS in which each of the MaaS-related players participates, this guideline organizes the items that should be noted when collaborating data from the standpoint of each player. This guideline is intended to provide a model example to promote collaboration among the players, and the players are not obliged to follow this guideline, but it is intended to facilitate the smooth provision and spread of MaaS, as well as to promote collaboration among MaaS”(https://www.diigo.com/item/pdf/csd/504e). According to Azarel Chamorro, these guidelines “are not legally binding, but projects that wish to receive public funding are encouraged to follow them.”

In the US, MaaS development and deployment has been slow despite the interest by several public transport agencies over the past ten years. Several agencies, such as Dallas Area Rapid Transit in Dallas, Texas; Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in California; and the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority in Dayton, Ohio have developed future mobility plans that incorporate MaaS based on their automated/mobile fare payment systems. Given that payment in MaaS applications can be the most challenging part of the application from a technology perspective, it seemed like basing MaaS on a robust fare payment system would facilitate its development and use. However, over the past few years, MaaS in the US has not been fully deployed.

Another factor that may have led to a slower development of MaaS in the US was the prominence of Mobility on Demand (MOD) and funding programs to demonstrate MOD. The US Department of Transportation’s (USDOT’s) Federal Transit Administration (FTA) began a MOD program in 2016 (called the MOD Sandbox) that supported the demonstration of innovation in personal mobility. Also, the definition of MOD is not the same as MaaS1 – it is a bit broader: “An integrated and connected multi-modal network of safe, affordable, and reliable transportation options that are available and accessible to all travelers.” (https://www.transit.dot.gov/regulations-and-guidance/shared-mobility-definitions)

Continuing MOD demonstrations in the US have been funded by subsequent USDOT and FTA programs including Integrated Mobility Innovation, Accelerating Innovative Mobility, Enhancing Mobility Innovation, and Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART). While MOD and MaaS have been, at times, equated to each other, the interest in MaaS in the US seems to have waned while pilots of MOD, specifically microtransit service2, have been increasing over the past several years.

MaaS Challenges

While the future of MaaS is not certain, the technical, institutional, fiscal, geographic and behavioral challenges are much better understood through the lessons learned over the past ten years. Perhaps the most comprehensive report describing the challenges is “Piecing Together the Puzzle: Mobility as a Service from the User and Service Design Perspectives” written by Jana Sochor for the International Transport Forum. The most significant challenges to MaaS identified by Sochor can be summarized as follows:

• Integration of mobility services, and coordination and cooperation among mobility service providers, government/regulatory bodies, platform developers and other stakeholders;
• Transportation ecosystem that is multimodal and well-connected;
• Technical challenges including development, maintenance and interoperability of platforms and digital infrastructure, data sharing protocols and standards, and data privacy and security;
• User adoption, perception and trust (e.g., data privacy and security), and encouraging and incentivizing travel behaviour change;
• Financial viability including business models that are sustainable, reliance on investment such as that provided by venture capital, and identifying and obtaining continuous funding;
• Regulatory and policy frameworks including operating within existing regulatory frameworks that may not be designed to accommodate MaaS, adapting regulations and policies to support MaaS, and addressing liability issues and ensuring fair competition; and
• Equity, inclusivity and accessibility including ensuring that MaaS services are accessible and affordable for all users, including persons with disabilities, low-income individuals, unbanked and underbanked individuals, seniors, and those with cultural differences.

The key to the future of MaaS) is overcoming the challenges identified above, some of which are quite complex and will require significant funding and piloting to confirm that the challenge(s) have been overcome. Hopefully, upcoming MaaS deployments and enhancements to existing MaaS systems will be based on specific and realistic goals and objectives so that their “success” can be measured in a precise way.

Also, the sustainability of the platforms and ability of these systems to encourage changes in travel behaviour away from the single-occupant vehicle will be critical as to whether or not MaaS will be an important part of personal mobility.