Mobility as a Services (MaaS) – does it have critical mass?

Cities are the powerhouses of nations. Dense concentrations of households and businesses increase accessibility and productivity, which ultimately deliver agglomeration economies. As cities grow, and globally the urban population is set to grow, cities become more spatially dispersed, and travel becomes a necessity. Left unchecked, congestion continues and this eventually dilutes the benefits of agglomeration (Graham, 2007). With urban area growth forecast to continue into the future, how can congestion be curtailed and the benefits of agglomeration maintained?

Transport contributes significant negative externalities – noise, air pollution and congestion. Contemporary transport practices increasingly compromise the well-being of existing populations. Perhaps more importantly, the way we travel today is constraining and compromising the environment of generations still to come. Climate change is largely (or entirely?) driven by human activity, and transport is hugely implicated. The transport sector in Australia, for example, accounts for 16% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, with light vehicles creating the lion’s share at 10% (Climate Change Authority, 2014, p. 17). Australia’s performance may be worse than other developed countries because of the greater share of road traffic, very low share of rail freight and the relative inefficiency of the vehicles (Climate Change Authority, 2014, p. 18). The transport sectors of other nations, however, make similar negative contributions to sustainability outcomes.

Most cities have moved from the predict-and-provide mentality, whereby the cycle of congestion is met by an expansion of the road network, which then fills up with extra traffic “excited” by any promise of reduced congestion. Providing new roads in most developed countries is now met with some cynicism, particularly when the motivation is to reduce congestion. The cycle of growth – congestion – dealing with congestion, is unlikely to be cured by road building for many cities. In time we will surely run out of space, if not resources, political imperative and cultural appreciations. Putting an end to the downward spiral of congestion diluting agglomeration requires new ways of thinking about access in cities.

A step change in technology promises much to sponsor new transport paradigms. Whilst many argue technology is driving change, this editorial argues that technology enables change. Sometimes this is rapid, and sometimes slow, but often it is dramatic when the right technologies come together at the right time. Gao, Kaas, Moh, and Wee (2016), for example, argues that economies are changing, consumer preferences around ownership are changing (more on this below) and digitisation, increasing automation and new business models are revolutionising industries and will eventually impact on the way in which cars are used. The connections between “smart” (a term reflective of the new digital opportunities) and urban sustainability is explored in Lyons (2016). However, for the purposes of this editorial, the discussion is focussed on the way in which technology is influencing our choice of mode, and the potential impact of autonomous driving has relevance to the need for greater sustainability in our cities.

One of the new buzz words in urban mobility is “Mobility as a Service” or MaaS. MaaS is put forward as a technology-enabled Mobility Management service where the customer interface and business back office are integrated. The concept of MaaS recognises the way in which travel is typically a disutility for the traveller who is motivated only by consuming at the destination. MaaS concentrates on resolving the origin and destination requirements of the traveller through providing (usually) a number of options which vary by mode, time and cost.

MaaS may be new but its predecessor, Mobility Management, is not. As early as 1991, the Department of Transport in the US was advocating Mobility Management, providing for a Mobility Manager to play a central role. The role of the Mobility Manager was described as follows:

The ‘Mobility Manager’ is a mechanism for creating a market for local transportation by matching the preferences of users with service suppliers, and providing a clearinghouse for individual and organisational financial transactions. The purpose of creating a market for intra-city transportation is both to provide alternatives to single occupant automobile travel and to provide special population groups with greater mobility … The Mobility Manager accomplishes its goals by linking together all travel modes – bus, taxi, vanpools, express bus, specialized services, carpools etc. at an informational level and, in most cases, at a transactional level as well. (US Department of Transportation, 1991, p. 16)

Mobility Management as a concept has been part of the flexible transport literature in relation to the on-demand provision of service (Mulley & Nelson, 2009). For example, the FAMs (Flexible Agency for Collective Mobility Services) EU project explored a virtual agency approach depending on information technology to link customers and suppliers in the Angus region of Scotland and in Florence in Italy (Ambrosino, Boero, Eloranta, Ferrari, & Finn, 2004). However, FAMS, and its successors, have remained trials or one-off projects, impeded by the inability of technology to enable the jump to mainstream delivery.

The technology now seems to have come of age to enable wide scale on-demand mobility services. The literature, and excitement, around MaaS is growing, but there is still no single definition. All definitions emphasise the service nature of mobility in contrast to mobility coming from an owned physical asset such as a car. MaaS encompasses all modes – from cars (owned and shared) to public transport modes (buses and trains) and taxis (including the Transportation Network Company offerings such as Uber and Lyft) (Transport Systems Catapult, 2015). In Europe, one of the European Commission’s (2016), Work programmes sees great opportunities coming from MaaS. It predicts a paradigm with service providers offering travellers easy, flexible, reliable, well-priced and environmentally sustainable everyday travel, mixing public transport, car-sharing, car leasing and road use, with more efficient goods shipping and delivery possibilities. The Work programme simultaneously acknowledges that such a condition needs quantifiable evidence on the travel patterns and behaviour of the end users.

The MaaS Alliance is a public–private partnership with a high level Board of Directors covering the information technology, communications and intelligent transport systems (ITS) sectors. It has a commitment to unlocking the economies of scale needed for successful implementation and take-up of MaaS in Europe and beyond (http://maas-alliance.eu/). The MaaS Alliance sees MaaS as a way of putting users, both people and goods, at the core of transport services, offering tailor-made mobility solutions based on individual needs. Their solutions are characterised by three principal concepts, with the first and second showing the way in which technology is enabling the customer interface with the business back-office system to provide seamless travel:

• Transport on Demand. To meet a customer’s needs, a MaaS service provider arranges the most suitable transport means, be it public transport, taxi or car rental, or even ride-, car- or bike-sharing.

• A Subscription Service. Users have no need to buy travel tickets or sign up for separate transport accounts since a MaaS account provides the freedom to choose the mobility you need, for an agreed period or pay-as-you-go subscription.

• Potential to create new markets. For transport providers, MaaS can offer new sales channels, access to untapped customer demand, simplified user account and payment management, as well as richer data on travel demand patterns and dynamics.

Mobility as a Service websites and applications are also springing up (e.g. MaaS Australia), although these remain empty websites and markers for the future. MaaS Global (https://maas.global/) is the Finnish MaaS concept launched in June 2016 as a smart phone app under the brand “Whim”. MaaS Global envisages a future in which MaaS is the alternative to owning a car because the MaaS service can offer the best option for every journey (e.g. a taxi, public transport, a rental car or a bike share). The back office of the platform operates to provide regulatory and practical support such as facilitating payment and fare systems. As with the TNCs, MaaS Global sees the potential for value-added services, such as deliveries for groceries or restaurant meals.

Apart from enabling technology, what else will MaaS need in order to be successful at disrupting the seemingly cemented and intractable travel practices in cities? Is MaaS a suitable response to improving the sustainability of our cities? How will MaaS fit with the increasing migration to urban areas which need to grow but are often geographically constrained? How will the concept work alongside densification – the popular approach to manage growth in car-focussed cities such as those in Australia and in the US? Will the culture of private car ownership continue to dominate, offsetting the benefits of MaaS and weakening its potential for success?

This last question raises one of the biggest hurdles for transition to MaaS – the need for a cultural shift away from personal car ownership and reliance, towards the multiple, often shared and public MaaS offerings. In Australia, an analysis of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Motor Vehicle Census shows the ratio of the number of registered passenger vehicles (cars) to population is still growing. This is clear across all states in Australia (Loader, 2016). It is consistent with the 3.6% global growth identified by Gao et al. (2016), who argue that this growth will reduce to 2% as a result of macroeconomic trends, MaaS and e-hailing. This is a small slowing of global car ownership rates and unlikely to ensure MaaS ubiquity – a requirement if MaaS is to bring about a pronounced improvement in the transport element of urban sustainability.

The statistics, described above, confirm Australia as an example of a car-loving nation. The private car has shaped Australian cities, ensuring they are sprawling with low-density populations, constrained only by natural barriers such as mountains or oceans. Australian cities have historically invested heavily in private car infrastructure, to the extent that in Sydney, for example, the high proportion of toll roads appears to be leading to toll saturation (Hensher, Ho, & Liu, 2016).

Across Australia, as in other car-reliant cultures such as the US, there does appear to be a general decline in car use. This is displayed in all age groups; however, the greatest decline is for the millennial generation. Often the biggest “millennial factor” is cited as changing attitudes to car ownership, and increased use of virtual media (on-line shopping, social media). According to McDonald (2015), this accounts for 35–50% drop in driving in the US. A review of a number of countries looking specifically at the Millennial generation shows a decline in licence holding in 9 of the 14 countries under consideration with an average rate of decline of 0.6% per annum. In Australia the decline was greatest (e.g. in New South Wales and Victoria the decline was 0.9% and 1.0%, respectively) (Delbosc & Currie, 2013). For MaaS, this shift would appear to be good news: Millennials are glued to their smart phones – in the UK, for example, 90% of respondents reported having a smart phone (Statista). Moreover, the Millennial generation appear to have a different cultural view of personal car ownership. Also, as travellers who may have never owned a car, they are less likely to be put off by a travel option which has a relatively high marginal cost offered by a MaaS platform when compared to the low marginal cost of the private car, since travel behaviour appears to forget the fixed costs and depreciation of the latter.

Outside the Millennial generation, which is technologically and culturally enabled for MaaS, what are the push factors which need to happen for MaaS to succeed? One push factor is the public health recognition of the contribution that active travel (both walking and cycling) can play in population health and in the reduction of lifestyle disease. The top-down public health messaging of greater physical activity gives MaaS wider options with active travel being offered as the trip or, in combination with the burgeoning delivery of cycle hire schemes, as first and last mile options. This is complemented by the (bottom up) greater take up of active transport, albeit from a low base, spanning from school-age participants through all working ages and maybe beyond, as older people remain fitter into the future. A second push comes in the denser urban areas where planning approaches, particularly the abandonment of minimum car-park spaces in planning applications, and lack of space have some capacity to proactively discourage private car use.

To identify the biggest challenge to MaaS success, however, it is necessary to return to the pervasive influence of cultural practices and attitudes – perceptions need to change more widely than simply in the Millennial generation. Attitudes to ownership need to change (and the literature, peer-reviewed and grey on autonomous vehicles recognises this too). There are some signs of this happening with the year-on-year growth of car-sharing schemes in all areas of the globe (Shaheen & Cohen, 2016). Changing attitudes can lead to changing consumer preferences, which in turn can lead to new travel behaviours. Enabling technology that pushes the take-up of multiple modes, such as MaaS, can change the way in which the private car is used. Currently the privately owned car is used for all purposes, but MaaS can show how multiple modes can be more efficient at meeting mobility needs, complemented by technology-enabled new methods of goods and services being delivered rather than being fetched by consumers.

If a change in cultural preferences can be achieved – and there needs to be more than hype to do this – MaaS has the opportunity to change the way in which we live in our cities (and perhaps beyond). Tailored solutions could lead to differentiated markets, which more closely match the demand for travel. But tailored solutions could also lead to more vehicles on the road if the tailored solution is not accompanied by a more sharing motivated culture. Technology can clearly enable the MaaS solution but for MaaS to make a contribution to the sustainability of our cities, it needs to engender a paradigm shift not only in the way in which mobility is delivered but also in cultural appreciations and practical adoption of shared travel options. This shift is required for the majority of the population, not just the Millennials.

Acknowledgements

This editorial has benefited from comments from Nick Stevens and Jennifer Kent, University of Sydney. Of course, any errors remain my responsibility.