What is Mobility as a Service?
MaaS is a concept and several MaaS-related terms are needed to describe it.
Read the MaaS dictionary by MaaSLab-UCL – a good starting point, for further development within the TravelSpirit Community.
TravelSpirit submits evidence on MaaS to UK Parliament
TravelSpirit recommends openness in written evidence to the UK Transport Committee.
TravelSpirit submitted evidence to the Transport Committee call for evidence on Mobility as a Service last month recommending that the Committee seeks the most open implementation of MaaS possible. Only this approach will accrue the broadest economic and social benefits and ensure access for all, so that those living in rural areas, the disabled, the elderly and the poorest in society — are protected from narrow, self-interest service implementations.
Whilst there are competing definitions of exactly what MaaS comprises, Travelspirit sees that, regardless of what the end state of MaaS looks like, it needs to be based on values of:
- Universality, where integrated and connected systems provide a path to sustainable and equitable transport;
- Open innovation that rewards sharing information and solutions, to everyone’s benefit;
- Global community working to tackle mobility and transport challenges;
- Local benefit where positive change is demonstrated at a community level.
Assessing Openness and Maturity in MaaS – our index developed in conjunction with UCL MaasLab
In 2017 TravelSpirit developed an index to asses transport networks’ openness as they move towards Mobility as a Service. This index has been further developed by Richard Goulding at the UCL MaaSLab to assess the readiness of metropolitan areas for the implementation of MaaS systems.
Various characteristics which affect the likelihood of a successful MaaS implementation are assessed to determine an aggregate score showing how ready a city is to implement MaaS.
TravelSpirit Openness Q&A
Openness is essential to Mobility as a Service. From end to end journeys across modes to monthly bundled mobility packages, nothing that is truly useful to travelers can be created without some degree of openness between at least some combination of operators, mobility as a service providers, and data providers
Read our brief summary of openness, who needs to be open and what it offers here.
Download: TravelSpirit Openness Q&A
TravelSpirit Second Annual Conference
Practical approaches to embedding Mobility as a Service
26 September 2017
Our engaging and thought provoking conference brought together people from across the sectors which are part of MaaS systems including operators, data providers, local and national authorities, consultants and academics. Explore the resources available including workshop summaries and presentations.
Workshop: The role of openness in commercial collaboration
Discussion from the TravelSpirit Conference, 26 September 2017
James Datson, Transport Systems Catapult
Everyone in the transport system wants information – in increasing amounts of detail. From travellers’ expecting real time updates to their journey times to operators basing service provision on demand forecasting.
This session looked at the types of information valued by three key parts of a MaaS system; traveller, operators and transport authorities.
The workshop participants – drawn from a wide range of operators, authorities and planners – brainstormed the needs of these groups. Whilst some of this information is non-contentious, other elements are commercially sensitive. However all agreed that more open disclosure would benefit the transport system as a whole. At the end of the session the group rated how likely legislation would be needed to create openness and how likely the market would provide it spontaneously.
Workshop: Openness and paying for transport
Discussion from the TravelSpirit Conference, 26 September 2017
Derek Halden, Loop Connections and TravelSpirit UK board member
Workshop:
The technology revolution offers huge potential for connected, flexible and better travel opportunities but global companies battle for power to carve out the monopolies through which the greatest future profits could be delivered. Which company will run the default software for autonomous cars, or the ‘go to’ place to make new types transport purchase?
Workshop: Policy making for open Mobility as a Service
Discussion from the TravelSpirit Conference, 26 September 2017
James Gleave, Transport Futures and TravelSpirit UK Board
Mobility as a Service poses a significant challenge to policy makers. Transport has traditionally been approached in a siloed mentality. Buses have their approach to ticketing, rail has another, aviation has yet another. That works for those industries, and in some cases extremely well for customers, if considered within the confines of that industry. After all, few can say that nobody has benefitted from a policy decision to liberalise air space, bringing on the boom in low cost airlines.
Mobility as a Service looks across these silos and looks to deliver a good service to the end customer. To realise its benefits not only requires policy interventions, but a new approach to how transport policy is developed.
travelspirit.io community
travelspirit.io is set to become a global commons of “Internet of Mobility” infrastructure, networks and code. An accessible resource for mobility operators and transport authorities, with new open source software components licensed under MPLV2
Curated by TravelSpirit Foundation, the “Internet of Mobility” will be built by a global community of organisations and individuals, with a diverse range of business interests (either in terms of different types products and services or application in different geo-spatial and cultural domains) joined together with a common vision and values.