MaaS and PT integration: Focus on vulnerable travellers

This PhD project will focus on smart adoption of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) with the purpose of providing vulnerable travellers (e.g., elderly and people with disabilities) with equitable mobility services.

The transport industry is experiencing a period of transformation with new technologies, products, and services to provide citizens in urban and rural areas with better mobility. MaaS offers travellers a one-stop platform to seamlessly plan and pay for various mobility services which are convenient, sustainable, and cheaper.

Participants

• RMIT University

So far, most services have targeted urban residents with no or limited attention to societal goals such as equitable access and fairness. This project will employ Machine Learning techniques to better understand user activity patterns, travel behaviour, and mode preferences. Smart card data, automatic vehicle location data, travel mode choice data, and Census data (to identify population density based on disability and age) will be used as input to machine learning models.

Based on the insights from the model, and considering public transport as the transit backbone, the aim is to achieve an informed strategy to effectively integrate other available means of transport and new modes (e.g., electric vehicles) via MaaS framework to provide vulnerable population with fair access to transport.

Project background

With new technologies, products, and services, the transport industry strives to provide citizens in urban and rural areas with better mobility. MaaS offers travellers a one-stop platform to seamlessly plan and pay for various mobility services which are convenient, sustainable, and cheaper. Besides an overall increase in demand for mobility services, the market growth of MaaS can be attributed to rapid urbanization and increased awareness of environmental sustainability like CO2 reduction.

Although the information infrastructure and transport networks are well-developed and managed, fully integrated MaaS service offerings still don’t fully exist. To date, most services have targeted urban residents with no or limited attention to equitable access and fairness.

Project objectives

This project aims to examine the smart adoption of MaaS to help vulnerable travellers and recommend strategies for better integration of various modes of transport via the MaaS framework to public transportation within a span of 4 years.

The project will achieve the following goals:

1. Research, collate and review consumer expectations and perspectives on MaaS and various plans for its adoption, both internationally and within Australia.
2. Identify gaps in the adoption of MaaS, including Australian travellers’ expectations, on-demand transport, barriers, and incentives to update, and payment preferences, focusing on vulnerable travellers.
3. Develop models/algorithms to understand and predict travel behaviour and patterns.
4. Devise strategy to integrate the models’ outcomes to the MaaS framework with public transport as the backbone.

Please note …

This page will be a living record of this project. As it matures, hits milestones, etc., we’ll continue to add information, links, images, interviews and more. Watch this space!