ITS Monday: Edition 3, 2026

Can active modes ever move beyond being niche?

Professor David Hensher in another of the Institute of Transport and Logistics‘ “Thinking Outside the Box” series. In it he “explores how active modes of transport, primarily walking and cycling, have long been championed for their environmental, health, and social benefits. Yet despite these advantages, they remain marginal in many urban transport settings, often overshadowed by private vehicles and public transport.”

Related iMOVE articles:

• Active Transport: Info, Projects & Resources

Related iMOVE project:

• Evaluation and implementation of shared spaces in NSW
• Optimising multimodal transport networks: Sharing road space

Is the future of travel truly smart?

A piece by Chris Wade, Director, People & Places Partnership, written for its LinkedIn profile. “Could the prospects of driverless cars, cashless parking and intelligent mobility help improve access to our town centres? Can ‘smart travel’ tackle town traffic or ultimately will the prize for all this innovative thinking simply be busier roads? Those were the questions I asked in a detailed blog 9 years ago. Let’s look at how I did them with my research and responses.”

Related iMOVE articles:

• Smart Mobility: Info, Projects & Resources
• Meet Smart Mobility Experts

Establishing evidence of initiatives undertaken by non-mobility service providers that are aligned with sustainable travel behaviour change as a next generation focus of MaaS as MaaF

A new academic paper, co-aiuthored by David Hensher, John Nelson, Camila Balbontin, Chinh Ho, Edward Wei, Corinne Mulley, and Thiranjaya Kandanaarachchir. The abstract:

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) has garnered a significant amount of interest over the last 15 years and yet we have very little to show in terms of its influence on travel behaviour aligned with sustainability goals or even a business case without an injection of significant government subsidy or private venture capital.

While we see claimed success in Japan and China with government-led and controlled initiatives with extensive subsidies, there is no financial support in other countries elsewhere beyond existing non-MaaS provided subsidies. We suggest the focus should be on a broader interpretation of transport services as an input into a wider activity-focussed product mix driven by the private sector, in a way that is also financially sustainable without necessarily requiring further subsidy from government.

This future of MaaS resides in a greater involvement of non-mobility service providers (NMSPs). We call this Mobility as a Feature (MaaF) as a revised eco-system invoked through participation of NMSPs. A multi-service focus may offer up some real prospects of delivering desirable travel behaviour change and facilitating a scalable outcome. A survey in six countries in 2024 was undertaken to identify initiatives that are already in place within private enterprise NMSPs and government agencies that align well with contributing to sustainable travel behaviour goals.

The results suggest many NMSPs are committed to initiatives and actions promoting changes to sustainable travel behaviour for employees or other stakeholders but are not typically officially recognised as MaaS/MaaF-like initiatives. These initiatives cover a broad range from rewarding sustainable travel, workplace charging for EVs and subsidies for employee use of public transport and facilitating active travel.

This paper suggests a new interpretation of what a future MaaS/MaaF portfolio may look like, noting that this scalable future does not have to depend on transport service providers. Arguably, the historical focus on transport service providers appears to have been a major roadblock in progressing MaaS.

Related iMOVE article:

• Mobility as a Service: Info, Projects & Resources
• MaaS: What have we learned, and where to next?

Related iMOVE projects:

• Sydney MaaS trial: Design, implementation, lessons, the future
• Mobility as a Service: Does Australia want it?
• ODIN PASS: A Mobility as Service trial at UQ

Almost two-thirds of school trips taken in cars

“New national research from the University of Sydney shows Australian children are travelling further, more often and with less independence than a generation ago, locking families into car-dependent routines that now shape daily life.”

Related iMOVE project:

• RideScore: Safe cycling routes to school
• Impacts & community benefits of a regional active travel network

As rooftop solar overtakes coal, more batteries are powering the night shift

“A four-fold surge in residential battery uptake is being hailed as a transformative moment for the electricity grid, offering hopes of lower prices by absorbing more of the excess renewable energy from solar panels during the day to power homes after sunset.”

Related iMOVE article:

• Electric Vehicles: Info, Projects & Resources
• The Conductor Series: The electrification of transport

Related iMOVE projects:

• An afterlife ecosystem for electric vehicle batteries
• Leading the charge in bi-directional charging
• Utrecht to Australia: Unlocking scalable, low-cost V2G
• Being a V2G trailblazer: Lessons for mass market adoption