MaaS: What have we learned, and where to next?

The concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) originated in mid-2010s, and with its first real-world trial (Ubigo) in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2013. Since 2019 in Australia iMOVE and partners have done some pioneering and important work in this area, and here we take a look at what has taken place already, and what is needed to make MaaS a strong part of Australia’s future transport scene.

To this end, iMOVE has commissioned Tulipwood Advisory to produce a report summarising iMOVE’s MaaS project activity to date, and also provide policy recommendations to support the development and deployment of MaaS in this country.

The report is entitled Mobility as a Service: Research summary, conclusions and action recommendations, and it’s downloadable at the bottom of this article.

What is MaaS?

There have been numerous definitions of MaaS, and those have developed since the early days of the idea of MaaS. In the final report for MaaS trial in Sydney project, this extensive definition of MaaS was arrived at:

MaaS is a framework for delivering a portfolio of multi-modal mobility services that places the user at the centre of the offer. MaaS frameworks are ideally designed to achieve sustainable policy goals and objectives. MaaS is an integrated transport service brokered by an integrator through a digital platform. A digital platform provides information, booking, ticketing, payment (as PAYG and/or subscription plans), and feedback that improves the travel experience.

The MaaS framework can operate at any spatial scale (i.e., .urban or regional or global) and cover any combination of multimodal and non-transport-related multi-service offerings, including the private car and parking, whether subsidised or not by the public sector.

MaaS is not simply a digital version of a travel planner, nor a flexible transport service (such as Mobility on Demand), nor a single shared transport offering (such as car sharing). ‘Emerging MaaS’ best describes MaaS offered on a niche foundation. This relates to situations where MaaS is offered on a limited spatial scale, to a limited segment of society or focused on limited modes of transport. The MaaS framework becomes mainstream when the usage by travellers dominates a spatial scale and the framework encompasses a majority of the modes of transport.

Simply put ‘MaaS is a one-stop travel management platform digitally unifying service inquiry, purchase and delivery’.

It offers subscribers an easy to use, attractively and variably priced (either PAYG or weekly, monthly, yearly), bundle of transport modes, be they public or private modes, to help subscribers move from A to B in either an urban orand rural setting.

That report went on to posit that MaaS could move beyond being a multimodal transport product, and also incorporate,:

“… discounts on non-transport services, for example, retail purchases, as well as having goods delivered to the subscriber, and especially where Working from Home becomes more popular, or MaaS points that can be redeemed for goods or gift cards.”

Why is MaaS important?

A successful MaaS ecosystem has a wide range of potential benefits, for customers and transport providers alike, and importantly there are broader societal benefits on offer.

Customers

• Rather than the separate purchase of individual transport services, a bundle of services might offers greater convenience, more informed choice, improved and/or more equitable mobility access, and reduced annual travel costs.
•  A successfully integrated MaaS product could eliminate the need for households to purchase and maintain private vehicles, with attendant and significant annual financial savings.

Transport providers

• By understanding and prioritising customer needs, MaaS providers can ensure that their services are convenient, reliable, and meet the users’ mobility requirements, which can drive adoption rates.
• Transport service providers, via the MaaS platform, are better able to cater to individual customer preferences and meet market demand at, potentially, a lower overall cost.
• MaaS has the potential to drive faster innovation in transport services, reduce transactions costs and achieve scale economies, and provide customers with a greater range and pricing of transport options that better align with their needs and preferences.

Societal change

• Infrastructure and connectivity issues which can require strategic investment in digital infrastructure, particularly in underserved areas. This could involve both public and private sector participation, such as ensuring sufficient digital coverage in regional, rural and remote Australia.
• MaaS has the potential to significantly reduce traffic congestion, increase road safety and, relatedly, parking pressure in urban areas, by encouraging the use of shared and public transport options and decreasing the number of single-occupancy vehicles on road networks.
• MaaS platforms can improve transport accessibility and equity by offering a wide range of mobility options that cater to diverse user needs. By including services such as wheelchair-accessible vehicles, discounted fares for low-income users, and user-friendly interfaces, MaaS can help ensure that transport systems are more inclusive and accessible.
• MaaS can contribute to a reduction in Greenhouse Gas emissions and particulate pollution by incentivising a shift from private vehicle use to more environmentally sustainable modes of transport. By integrating options like electric bikes, scooters, and electric vehicle-sharing services, the MaaS platform can encourage users to adopt low-emission transport alternatives, especially via bundled pricing strategies that target environmental sustainability goals.
• MaaS can potentially stimulate economic growth and job creation by fostering innovation within the transport sector and promoting a more efficient use of scarce resources. The development of new services, technologies, and infrastructure to support MaaS can create employment opportunities in research, engineering, data analytics, and customer service. As an ecosystem where technology plays an integral role, MaaS also offers the prospect of continual innovation, with new business models and ways to organise and operate the various transport modes.

iMOVE’s MaaS work

Across those three areas, customer, transport provider, and society, it’s clear to see that the promise of MaaS neatly dovetails into iMOVE’s mission of advancing the development and adoption of technologies that improve Australia’s transport systems, through high impact R&D collaborations.

And our collaboration on impactful MaaS projects way is well under way here. iMOVE and partners have been conducting MaaS trials and research and development for 5 years now. Those projects include:

• MaaS and On-Demand Transport – Consumer Research and Report
• MaaS business models: Lessons for operators and regulators
• MaaS trial in Sydney (and the project’s final report)
• ODIN PASS: A Mobility as Service trial at UQ
• MaaS blueprint design for regional towns and rural hinterlands (and its final report here)

This is a well-rounded group of projects, moving from an introductory survey of public interest in MaaS, to looking at business models and ensuring a place for MaaS in regional areas, and finally to two real-world MaaS trials, conducted in Brisbane and Sydney.

Our thanks goes to the following organisations iMOVE worked with on these projects:

• Transport for NSW
• The University of Sydney’s Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies
• Department of Transport and Main Roads (Queensland)
• University of South Australia
• IAG
• SkedGo
• University of Queensland
• ITS Australia
• Department of Transport and Planning (Victoria)
• Department of Transport (WA)
• Royal Automobile Association of SA Inc.

Sydney and Brisbane MaaS trials – findings

You’re welcome of course to download final reports of those trials in Sydney and Brisbane and trawl through all of the work, but here we’ll list a few of the main findings.

Sydney

Project information: MaaS trial in Sydney (completed)
Final report: Sydney MaaS trial: Design, implementation, lessons, the future

Australia’s first MaaS trial, running for two years. The trial’s design was informed by earlier European MaaS trials, focusing on understanding which transport services should be included in a MaaS platform and how those services should be bundled.

The challenge was to devise mobility bundles that encourage sustainable transportation habits, reduce car use (and CO2 emissions), while at the same time being commercially viable. It was recognised that subscription plans with financial discounts have the potential to change travel behaviour in line with sustainability goals.

Results

• The introduction of new bundles each month, based on learnings from previous months, showed a pattern of reduced private car use among subscribers compared to those who chose the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) option.

Finding / recommendations

• The right mix of incentives, coupled with effective communication and public awareness campaigns, could make a tangible difference in achieving sustainability goals in transportation.
• the trial revealed the significant commercial challenges facing a viable MaaS platform, which have generally relied on government subsidies.
• MaaS programs should consider how they might offer a distinctive level of service (separate from the attraction of the digital platform) that is not available to travellers outside of a subscription plan. An example might be a guaranteed door-to-door personal service twice a week, effective when individuals have a change in routine that can benefit from a bespoke transport service.
• it will be crucial to develop a sustainable business model that balances the costs and benefits while considering changing societal and environmental factors.
• Ongoing information sharing and education are critical to drive a change in habits. However, any change will be gradual.
• It is important to acknowledge that post COVID-19 there has been a significant shift in the effectiveness and acceptance of working from home and concern about social distancing on public transport for some people.
• There has to be economic benefit for the user (i.e. less expensive than buying tickets elsewhere).

Brisbane

Project information: ODIN PASS: A Mobility as Service trial at UQ (ongoing)

This trial lunched in mid-2021 at UQ St Lucia for staff and students, and is set to conclude in June 2024. Through iOS and Android smartphone applications, participants can subscribe to monthly transport plans/bundles, and plan and book multi-modal trips.

Results

• ODIN PASS reached the milestone of having provided 1 million public transport trips. “With 51% of participants saying they were more likely to use public transport, and 54% deciding to leave their car at home, MaaS has the potential to dramatically change the way Queenslanders access public transport services.”

Findings / recommendations

• Trial proponents and/or start-ups will need to fully understand the requirements and needs of users – don’t assume it is what MaaS proponents say.
• Development of cross-governmental (i.e. all three tiers of government as well as the relevant departments and other agencies) support for MaaS which provides market stability as far as possible. As part of this, develop strong partnerships and trust between stakeholders.
• If possible, secure (modest) discounted prices to maximise chances of consumers switching to the MaaS platform.

Regional MaaS

It might seem at first thought that MaaS is predominantly a product for urban transport due to the size of the market and the wide scope of transport modes available, but just as we found that one size / one type does not fit all urban locations, so too if goes for regional Australia, and it is that which we investigated in the MaaS blueprint design for regional towns and rural hinterlands project.

The resulting blueprint findings and recommendations included:

• In regional areas, there are limited transport options, vast distances, lower population density, a higher dependence on private cars, and often greater socio-economic uncertainty.
• Taking a multi-service approach, including innovative transport modes heretofore not present in the rural and regional landscape, and non-mobility services.
• Private transport will play a relatively larger role in the configuration of rural and regional MaaS platform services than in an urban setting.
• Stakeholders include government agencies, transport service providers, health and aged care organisations, community members, First Nations groups, digital platform providers, and business-related sectors. These stakeholders play various roles in supporting policy, funding, regulatory frameworks, data sharing, identifying transport needs, ensuring accessibility and affordability, cultural sensitivity, technology provision, and attracting investment.

The final report for this project can be downloaded at What should MaaS be in regional towns and rural hinterlands?

MaaS: The way ahead

From the transport provider’s perspective, there is some evidence that MaaS platforms can improve network efficiency by optimising supply and demand (via bundle and PAYG price adjustments), especially during peak hours when certain modes or particular routes are underutilised. Consequently, MaaS platforms can, in theory, reduce traffic congestion and, consequently, GHG emissions.

Mobility as a Service: Research summary, conclusions and action recommendations, page 47

The above quote is couched in uncertainty, and not by accident. MaaS’ future here is uncertain. For one, it’s still quite a new concept, trialled sparingly and in finite Australian markets.

As mentioned earlier, there is no one size fits all MaaS model, there is an inherent “… need to tailor many aspects of MaaS to specific contexts, if the scope and scale of MaaS is to increase, experts and policymakers will need to identify the necessary conditions to move MaaS out of a niche offering in several large global cities to one that is scalable across a broader set of different urban and regional environments.”

In order to have MaaS take a place in the transport ecosystem, to sell it so to speak to both transport customers, transport providers, and government, the following is crucial:

• Clearly define and align the public policy goals related to MaaS and their social value, including environmental sustainability goal and mobility access goals;
• Understand exactly which aspects of MaaS platform services provide benefits to customers and society; and
• Design and implement a workable business model, which requires a common (or widely used) platform/s and addressing many legal and regulatory issues such as customer data privacy and other data-related issues.

As the Mobility as a Service: Research summary, conclusions and action recommendations report notes, “If, as forecast, Australian cities grow in size and density, and digital platform services become an essential part of our lives, the demand for efficient, affordable, and convenient end-to-end mobility services could be expected to correspondingly rise.”

Finding ways in which MaaS might play a role in the overall mobility task, and to ask if in future such mobility improvements might be delivered without MaaS – time will tell. Indeed, this will be a line of investigation in an upcoming new iMOVE MaaS project.

Along with population and digital platform growth, also factor in Australia’s high penetration of mobile phone ownership. The mobile phone is essentially a key to using MaaS.

Professor David Hensher, together with Sampo Hietenan (MaaS Global) has put forward a new, associated term, Mobility as a Feature (MaaF) in which other services and discounts are thrown into the bundle mix, such as retail discounts, goods delivery, sports and event packages and so on. They suggest that this can be an attractive way of offering additional incentives that can benefit all service providers in growing their customer base as subscribers grow.

It’s been mentioned earlier that education and communication is essential to a MaaS success. The public need to know exactly what the offering is, and how much it will save them (and the environment), and transport providers need to know exactly why they should be involved.

And finally, on the matter of transport providers, including of course government participants, it is proposed that for each MaaS offering there could be a central tendering and management authority.

Operationalising MaaS is a complex undertaking.  This is because many stakeholders with many legacy systems need to come together to present a single offer to consumers.

Hensher, Mulley and Nelson (2023) propose a tendering authority framework that would be responsible for a common access MaaS platform into which competitive tendered MaaS consortium bids are assessed with multiple ‘winners’ selected to ensure coverage of all multimodal and multi-service products across the successful bid.

Such an approach serves to give users bundle and PAYG choices and ensure a competitive MaaS market.

Tasks for such authorities would include:

• Defining societal-linked service Key Performance Indicators (KPI), connected to financial and non-financial rewards available to each MaaS consortium and their subscribers, when changes in travel behaviour align with the KPIs.
• Liaison with Government to achieve public policy objectives.
• Data sharing: The framework handles the controversial topic of data sharing by requiring MaaS consortia to share only aggregated passenger data with the tendering agency. Detailed data sharing isn’t necessary, avoiding many privacy concerns.
• Payments, incentives, and rewards: Consortia (comprising varying compositions of mobility and non-mobility service providers) would receive public transport subsidies from the government and could cross-subsidise various services. Financial rewards associated with societal KPIs would require consortia to provide aggregate public transport usage data to the tendering authority.

These tasks and more are being refined and tested in the ongoing project, A framework of support to scale in Mobility as a Service.

Download the report

Download your copy of the final report, Mobility as a Service: Research summary, conclusions and action recommendations, by clicking the button below.

In it there’s far more detail on points discussed here, along with an overview of MaaS trials and developments elsewhere in the world, and assessments the characteristics and chances for the future of MaaS in Australia.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT