Europe leads, and it is North America that lags, even as the smart city initiatives anchored within the public–private partnerships go on to drive growth opportunities for MaaS operators.
The concept pertaining to Mobility-as-a-Service- MaaS which is a platform that goes on to integrate diverse transport modes as well as transport options from different providers into a single smartphone app with services that go on to span route planning to payments, is indeed evolving at a rapid pace. The growth of the market is all set to be dynamic since work patterns as well as consumer mobility preferences alter, specifically post-COVID, and cities look forward to building integrated, flexible, efficient, as well as sustainable mobility networks. Frost & Sullivan’s research goes on to highlight that the MaaS market within Europe and North America is all set to be around $20 billion by the end of this decade.
MaaS to take care of the existing challenges in urban mobility
It is well to be noted that today there happens to be a growing consensus that the urban mobility future lies within integrated multimodal solutions. MaaS providers are ideally positioned as mobility service providers- MSPs as city authorities go ahead as well as push to overcome the functional inefficiencies as well as congestion along with pollution challenges that are associated with existing urban transport networks.
Technology-enabled MaaS happens to be having the potential to make the utmost use of unwieldy mobility networks. With time, the mainstreaming when it comes to connected vehicles, AI, as well as 5G mobile networks will continue to generate more momentum in terms of the adoption of scalable MaaS technologies. Growth impetus in terms of MaaS will come from smart city initiatives, which are anchored in public-private partnerships. At the same time, shared stakeholder goals, whether be it the governments or the private service providers, institutions-individuals, MSPs, or even the city authorities, technology offerors, or automakers when it comes to streamlining transport management throughout the urban mobility value chain will go on to boost uptake as far as MaaS is concerned.
Challenges In the way forward
It is worth noting that sustained success in terms of MaaS deployment will go on to depend upon the robust policy as well as regulatory support, which is reinforced by way of strong legal frameworks. Stakeholders will also be required to promote interoperability, be on the same page on data sharing protocols, and, at the same time, establish crystal clear data management frameworks.
This will indeed be challenging in terms of a complex, sprawling ecosystem with multiple participants, which includes providers of white-label apps, customer MaaS apps, mobility marketplaces, smart ticketing, journey planning and mapping, as well as smart payments. Tag into this, providers of distinct transport modes like shared cars and micromobility, vehicle hailing, demand responsive transit, as well as active modes. Meanwhile, both revenue as well as business models like business-to-consumer- B2C, business-to-government- B2G, and business-to-business- B2B happen to be still developing even as the use cases are all set to span leisure shopping and retail so as to commute and also have in it employee travel.
Europe in the vanguard when it comes to MaaS deployment
In the present scenario, public transport authorities as well as cities in Europe have been in the vanguard when it comes to transitioning MaaS pilots into full-scale rollouts. Implementations, with private cars still happen to be very much the fulcrum when it comes to urban transport.
The MaaS success in Europe is attributed to multiple factors. To begin, sustainability imperatives have led to more cities as well as public transport operators proactively looking into MaaS solutions. Secondly, this has gone on to be backed by robust regulatory support. For example, the Multimodal Digital Mobility Services- MDMS regulation, which is currently under discussion, looks forward to elevating the convenience of making use of multiple modes of transport within the EU. Another instance is the UK Department for Transport’s advisory code so as to guide the deployment as far as MaaS solutions are concerned. And, finally, an environment that’s conducive to public and private partnerships has been, and will go on to be a key enabler of market growth.
It is worth noting that in North America, fragmented public transit networks as well as a general dearth of political intent have gone on to result in a more subdued pace as far as the adoption of MaaS goes. This has gone on to be aggravated by the fact that, when it comes to individual level, the car still happens to remain the most widely used as well as preferred form of transport within the cities and suburbs.
While the technology providers go on to offer trip planning apps, this has not yet transformed into an absolute multimodal app usage. Numerous customers still favor applications that are linked to their local transit authority. At the same time, in the absence of a concerted push from cities, crystal clear specifications that are related to data usage and sharing, robust regulatory frameworks, as well as more collaborative initiatives, the likelihood is that market growth will be tepid. Against this spectrum, more widespread integration within the MSPs, public transport operators, as well as popular ride-hailing operators like Uber and Lyft will go on to incline customers more positively toward MaaS.
Changing Mobility Patterns: Collaborative Approaches to Speed- Up the MaaS Adoption
Major competitive factors within the market go on to include cost, technology, dependence, as well as contractor and customer relationships.
Hybrid working models, sustainability imperatives, along with changing customer expectations are all transforming mobility as well as commuting practices, while at the same time also creating fertile ground in terms of MaaS adoption. In this situation, MaaS operators happen to be uniquely positioned so as to promote flexible, efficient, and streamlined multimodal transport.
Public-private partnerships, as exemplified by the MaaS alliance across Europe, are going to be the bedrock of a successful shift to MaaS. Collaborative approaches will go on to facilitate quick development as well as the adoption of smart and sustainable city mobility ecology.
