What politicians and policy makers need to know about MaaS

Around the world, leaders in national and local government are focused on how best to transform communities for the better. Digitalisation is offering powerful new technological solutions across a range of services to address citizens’ pain points.

This includes the ways that people use transportation to navigate the urban environment, notably through adoption of innovations such as Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS), which not only simplifies access to multimodal networks but also has the potential to enable policy makers to positively impact the lives of the people they serve.

Mobility is a fundamental challenge for cities, regions and towns – and for people who live there or visit. Mobility impacts individual finances – for example 50% of people significantly underestimate the cost of car ownership. Transport accessibility also affects the sustainability of cities and the health of citizens – air pollution is estimated to contribute to the death of 300,000 Europeans each year.

And when wider climate impact is taken into account, it’s little wonder that the European Green Deal has targeted a 90% reduction in greenhouse emissions within cities by 2050.

MaaS can be a key contributor to these overarching social, environmental, and commercial goals. But what do authorities need to do to start their MaaS journey and roll it out effectively to maximise its benefits?

MaaS connects the journey to the destination

When most people picture MaaS, they imagine an app that combines journey planning, ticketing, payment and account management in one place. In other words, “I book a parking space, I take public transport into the city centre, and use an active travel mode from the station to my place of work. I also pay securely for the whole journey in-app with a single payment.”

At Flowbird, we’ve learned that adopting a siloed approach when thinking about MaaS doesn’t lead to the best outcome for end users because it fails to recognise its true value or potential.

When someone travels, it’s to go somewhere. Whether you’re visiting your grandmother across town or taking a trip to Paris to propose to your partner under the Eiffel tower – people travel not simply to reach a destination, but for a purpose.

MaaS enables cities to think just like your citizens. MaaS gives you the opportunity to understand not just how people travel but why people are travelling. This, in turn, helps unlock information, services and value that would be of most benefit to end-users.

For instance, when someone purchases a museum or football match ticket, a MaaS app can send notifications about the best ways to get to the event, including bus routes, scooter reservations, or nearby parking facilities.

Integrating data analytics between mobility and cultural / leisure activities can also help define what’s working and what isn’t in current networks – and remove the friction from people’s experiences.

For instance, a MaaS app can make real-time suggestions to visitors of a museum that they might want to take a bus, because the nearby car park has low capacity. Cities can also use MaaS to incentivise public transport in high traffic areas, to alleviate congestion.

Knowing you’re going to miss an event because you can’t find parking, or because you took the wrong bus is a terrible feeling. Imagine removing these barriers for locals and tourists, while reducing traffic jams and emissions at the same time.

A MaaS provider can help align the mobility policy of the city

When your city has multiple active travel providers, and many bus, train and parking options, it can be hard for consumers to understand the best choices. Now imagine integrating all these operators on a single MaaS app. Suddenly, aligning mobility policy with sustainability, economic and societal goals feels more achievable.

Analysing data across transportation providers will deliver much better insights into how each service works. Travellers will have the same ease of rider experience whether they go to work or attend an event downtown.

MaaS is about creating an effortless travel experience, no matter the mode of travel. If it’s not effortless, it’s not going to be an effective tool to drive more people to use public transport or improve sustainable travel choices.

MaaS can incentivise ridership and sustainable travel

A MaaS system also provides new ways of rewarding people to make more sustainable choices. What if those riders were prioritised at popular destinations? Or if sustainable vehicles got priority access to certain spaces?

A MaaS app user can also see a dashboard that provides insights on their carbon impact and how their wider neighbourhood is faring.

The app could also provide practical information linked to health, carbon footprint, and finances if they travelled more sustainably.

For example:

If someone takes the bus, they could see what they’ve saved by not taking their car and paying for fuel and parking.
If someone takes a scooter, they could see the CO2 they avoided emitting by using other modes.
If someone rides a bike, they could see how it impacted their overall health.

The next logical step, which we’re working on at Flowbird, is ‘MaaS gamification, which enables MaaS authorities to reward travellers for making smart decisions. Whether financial, experiential, or recognition based, gamification can notify users with positive reinforcement when they make certain choices such as taking their first bus ride, travelling over 10 km on an e-bike, or reducing their transportation carbon footprint by X%.

Gamification can inspire people to make better travel decisions.

Building trust means focusing on rider behavioural trends not individuals’ data

MaaS systems are occasionally viewed as a way to get more data from people and passengers. But MaaS is more successful when authorities focus more on increasing ridership than increasing the amount of personal data they gather.

First, it builds trust with your users. They can feel comfortable booking a ride knowing you aren’t interested in their personal information. Plus, who doesn’t want to skip the lengthy forms that often exist when signing up to a new app?

Second, your MaaS platform will be more agile. If you’re not storing personal data, you don’t have to jump through as many hoops when it comes to security and compliance. Rather, you’re able to launch your MaaS project faster, and begin to change how commuters view travelling in your city.

You don’t need to reinvent the MaaS platform

MaaS isn’t designed for transportation companies, its purpose is to improve the lives of the citizens who use it by making mobility infrastructure more accessible, faster and safer to access. The better the platform you’re able to create, the happier your users. While the idea of embarking on a MaaS journey may feel intimidating, you don’t have to start from scratch.

The Flowbird platform is a white label MaaS solution that can be customised and branded by a city or region. If your city wants to emulate some of the transportation poster cities of the world, like Shanghai, Tokyo, New York, or London, you can. Flowbird makes the investment to get up and running affordable, and the process faster all around.

Get in touch to learn more about how you could get your city MaaS ready. Or check out our article on what cities need to do to make MaaS work.